[Freedombox-discuss] Shaddi Hasan: Why wireless mesh networks won't save us from censorship

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 04:30:07PM -0800, John Gilmore wrote:
> [This is why I advocate that our devices include multiple Ethernet ports,
> so that we can run an Ethernet to our neighbor to build our own local
> networks, rather than relying on wireless connectivity.  --gnu]

60 GHz consumer wireless should come 2012, which with well-aligned
parabol sat dish boosting should be good for ~km LoS and have 
negligible costs in comparison to today's 60 GHz gear yet give 
you about ~GBit/s worth of link which will only go down in 
heavy rain or snow.

Copper is cheap enough but for inter-building connectivity 
I would very much recommend to use fiber due to galvanic
separation. Apparently it's possible to buy ready to use 
~100 m and more fiber patch cables and consumer priced L2 
(and soon L3, according to what I see in China) switches 
with GBIC (SFP and SFP+) ports. The optics itself is affordable 
enough, e.g. via Netgear. 

The fiber Thunderbolt will make it cheaper still.
 
> Forwarded-By: Dave Farber <farber at gmail.com>
> Forwarded-By: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne at warpspeed.com>
> Forwarded-By: Tim Pozar <pozar at lns.com>
> 
> http://sha.ddih.org/2011/11/26/why-wireless-mesh-networks-wont-save-us-from-censorship/

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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