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Corporations have twisted community politics to make such things very difficult. In my community, a municipal fiber optic network was built throughout the area

by zerohp 9y ago

Corporations have twisted community politics to make such things very difficult. In my community, a municipal fiber optic network was built throughout the area but lobbying and politics made it nearly impossible to finish, so there are very few homes connected.

timthelion 9y ago
What laws exist against a 5ghz ubiquity mesh network? I know that such laws can be challenging. Here, there was a proposed law to charge money for the use of that wireless band. The law was very unpopular however, and was not passed. But I can understand that happening.
- danieldk 9y ago
  What laws exist against a 5ghz ubiquity mesh network? That easy: make you liable for what people do on your network. Make it hard to register as an official network provider that would forfeit some of the liability. https://qz.com/694618/why-is-it-impossible-to-find-free-wi-fi-in-germany/ https://qz.com/694618/why-is-it-impossible-to-find-free-wi-f... (AFAIR, in Germany there are some changes now, but it's a good example how Internet sharing is made difficult for anyone without a large legal department.)
  - timthelion 9y ago
    I'm not sure what to say to this. I don't think that these challenges make my opinion wrong or invalid. They make me sad, and I'd like to fight against such challenges. But from an idealistic point of view, I don't think that they raise a fundamental problem with my belief in "community networks", merely a legal one which might be able to be fixed through protest and civil-disobedience, and all else failing, revolution (I guess you have to leave revolution on the table, despite the bad results revolutions have had in recent years, if democracy in your country really doesn't work at all).
- bomdo 9y ago
  Mesh networking is cool, but it doesn't scale without at least some cable connected nodes routing the traffic. And those will be impacted by network neutrality. On an unrelated note, incredibly shady things are currently being done by US corporations in regards to the 5GHz unlicensed spectrum being used for commercial LTE [1]. This is obviously a very slippery slope and would need strong regulation from the FCC. However, the FCC just approved it for live use in February (Pai got into office in January). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum
chiefalchemist 9y ago
So to maintain net neutrality we have to fix democracy first? Makes sense, as that would fix more than NN. The irony is, we need the internet (sans the cats photos and Kardashians) to do that.
- timthelion 9y ago
  Do you need the internet? So far, all successful, country wide, democratic movements in the history of humankind have happened off-line.
  - Abekkus 9y ago
    If your political enemy has the internet, and you don't, you lose.
  - jnicholasp 9y ago
    How many more successful, country wide, democratic movements would there have been in the history of humanity if there had been a means of communication and coordination as effective as the internet? "Need" is distinct from "makes far, far easier and likely". It can be done without the internet, obviously, but the circumstances in which it can be done are undoubtedly far more rare.
    - timthelion 9y ago
      Well, the Arab Spring, at the time, was seen as the emergence of the internet in the world of democratic revolution. Now we know it was a total failure. Not a single country came out better. Perhaps that is just a coincidence, but I think that it is possible that the speed and shallowness of the communication actually played a big role in the failure of the revolutions. Real, stable, democratic social structures cannot form in such a short time.
      - serf 9y ago
        There are more forces required than the call-to-arms for a revolution to end in a net success for the people initiating it. I think it's unfair to task 'the internet' with the entire task of establishing a fair government. The communications channel succeeded. The call-to-arms was heard. The failure wasn't with the use of the internet, it was with everything that went on after dissent began. People expected 'internet = democracy' and overburdened the whole concept. Free and wide communications is just a stepping stone, one of many, that edges a governing body into fair-practice.
bobwaycott 9y ago
We did the same thing here in CHA. Luckily, we won the battle of lobbying and politics—and even a court case against Comcast. We fibered up the whole county. Sadly, telcos then lobbied for legislation to prevent expanding outside our service area, and they won. Now our legislators have given Comcast & AT&T $45M what our municipal broadband could do at zero cost to taxpayers. It’s ridiculous.

by zerohp 9y ago

timthelion 9y ago

What laws exist against a 5ghz ubiquity mesh network? I know that such laws can be challenging. Here, there was a proposed law to charge money for the use of that wireless band. The law was very unpopular however, and was not passed. But I can understand that happening.

danieldk 9y ago
What laws exist against a 5ghz ubiquity mesh network? That easy: make you liable for what people do on your network. Make it hard to register as an official network provider that would forfeit some of the liability. https://qz.com/694618/why-is-it-impossible-to-find-free-wi-fi-in-germany/ https://qz.com/694618/why-is-it-impossible-to-find-free-wi-f... (AFAIR, in Germany there are some changes now, but it's a good example how Internet sharing is made difficult for anyone without a large legal department.)
- timthelion 9y ago
  I'm not sure what to say to this. I don't think that these challenges make my opinion wrong or invalid. They make me sad, and I'd like to fight against such challenges. But from an idealistic point of view, I don't think that they raise a fundamental problem with my belief in "community networks", merely a legal one which might be able to be fixed through protest and civil-disobedience, and all else failing, revolution (I guess you have to leave revolution on the table, despite the bad results revolutions have had in recent years, if democracy in your country really doesn't work at all).
bomdo 9y ago
Mesh networking is cool, but it doesn't scale without at least some cable connected nodes routing the traffic. And those will be impacted by network neutrality. On an unrelated note, incredibly shady things are currently being done by US corporations in regards to the 5GHz unlicensed spectrum being used for commercial LTE [1]. This is obviously a very slippery slope and would need strong regulation from the FCC. However, the FCC just approved it for live use in February (Pai got into office in January). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum

chiefalchemist 9y ago

So to maintain net neutrality we have to fix democracy first? Makes sense, as that would fix more than NN. The irony is, we need the internet (sans the cats photos and Kardashians) to do that.

timthelion 9y ago
Do you need the internet? So far, all successful, country wide, democratic movements in the history of humankind have happened off-line.
- Abekkus 9y ago
  If your political enemy has the internet, and you don't, you lose.
- jnicholasp 9y ago
  How many more successful, country wide, democratic movements would there have been in the history of humanity if there had been a means of communication and coordination as effective as the internet? "Need" is distinct from "makes far, far easier and likely". It can be done without the internet, obviously, but the circumstances in which it can be done are undoubtedly far more rare.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    Well, the Arab Spring, at the time, was seen as the emergence of the internet in the world of democratic revolution. Now we know it was a total failure. Not a single country came out better. Perhaps that is just a coincidence, but I think that it is possible that the speed and shallowness of the communication actually played a big role in the failure of the revolutions. Real, stable, democratic social structures cannot form in such a short time.
    - serf 9y ago
      There are more forces required than the call-to-arms for a revolution to end in a net success for the people initiating it. I think it's unfair to task 'the internet' with the entire task of establishing a fair government. The communications channel succeeded. The call-to-arms was heard. The failure wasn't with the use of the internet, it was with everything that went on after dissent began. People expected 'internet = democracy' and overburdened the whole concept. Free and wide communications is just a stepping stone, one of many, that edges a governing body into fair-practice.

bobwaycott 9y ago

We did the same thing here in CHA. Luckily, we won the battle of lobbying and politics—and even a court case against Comcast. We fibered up the whole county. Sadly, telcos then lobbied for legislation to prevent expanding outside our service area, and they won. Now our legislators have given Comcast & AT&T $45M what our municipal broadband could do at zero cost to taxpayers. It’s ridiculous.