I saw a post in the hacking section about an open mesh based cellular carrier idea, which could evolve into an open internet. Honestly I think IP based communications are about to take over everything, look how popular VoIP has become lately...
So would it be theoretically possible to have everyone's internet be mesh based, and possibly radio based more like cellular networks? I think we could start building drop in replacements for cable modems that used radio frequencies to talk to nearby nodes, thus allowing everyone to communicate...
I'm a newbie to this but I just thought it was worth talking about *cue discussion*
Not if cities start their own ISPs, and also does anyone know if ISPs currently have a way of pinpointing exactly where fiber cuts are? And what kind of redundancy is in place? Could you have a system where the fiber was in more of a loop instead of a hub and spokes, and each client had 2 connections to the fiber? That way if there was a cut in the loop they could just route traffic through the other half...also maybe have a 3G or Satellite connection on the cable modem type boxes so that they can notify ISPs as to what's down and what's up, thus allowing them to pinpoint the cut in between two boxes based on which lines are link-up and link-down?
Because a circle type mesh system would allow the fiber network to be cut once, and as long as you had a full circle the boxes would be able to look at what's up and what's down, and notify the core router using the other half of the fiber, so ISPs know exactly where it is. The loop system would also allow redundancy and re routing so when there is a single cut clients wouldn't even be able to notice the difference because the modems would just start routing to the other line (each modem would have 2 lines). Maybe I'm crazy but I just kind of dreamed that up in History today and thought I'd share...
Because a circle type mesh system would allow the fiber network to be cut once, and as long as you had a full circle the boxes would be able to look at what's up and what's down, and notify the core router using the other half of the fiber, so ISPs know exactly where it is. The loop system would also allow redundancy and re routing so when there is a single cut clients wouldn't even be able to notice the difference because the modems would just start routing to the other line (each modem would have 2 lines). Maybe I'm crazy but I just kind of dreamed that up in History today and thought I'd share...
What you are describing is called token ring. It was created by IBM in 1985 and it is not in wide use today because packet switching is a thing. The wikipedia article on token ring does a good job describing it. There is an official gigabit version of token ring but nobody has actually brought any products to market for it because everybody is using packet switching equipment now. The only industry that still uses token ring is the entertainment lighting industry. Lighting networks are moving from DMX to computer networks and in a entertainment environment, having the redundancy of token ring is well worth it even though token ring is about the same as DMX in regards to latency.