[PLUG-TALK] Government owned monopoly networks

[Russell Senior]

>>>>> "Keith" == Keith Lofstrom <keithl at gate.kl-ic.com> writes:

Keith> The government should stick to streets and sewers, water and
Keith> parks, schools and cops.  If they ever manage to get those
Keith> right, and have wads of spare cash and rooms full of
Keith> bureaucrats with too much spare time, perhaps we can talk about
Keith> adding to their responsibilities.  When that happy day comes,
Keith> I'll whip out my long list of proposed new government
Keith> responsibilities, with public networks somewhere around #35 or
Keith> so.

Keith> There are people hurting out there.  The internet is mostly a
Keith> hobby.  Please get your priorities straight.

I don't have time to respond to the rest of this, but I want to
address this little point:

Society is spending craptons of money *right now*, hundreds of
millions a year in Portland alone, on communications services.  The
resources are there to fund a *good* network because we are spending
those resources on a crappy one right now, with the profits diverted
and exported.  Think of the "spare cash" we could free up to solve our
other priorities if we weren't blowing it under our current monopoly
abuse.

As for your fictional space-based wireless network, build one and
demonstrate it at scale.  You handwave away the interference problems.
That works on paper, not in reality.  Your beamforming antennas can
deliver a signal to a spot, but they also spray incoherent RF
everywhere else at the same time.  They can't, in reality, transmit
and listen at the same time.

Fiber is decades-old proven technology that works and scales.  Wireless is not.


-- 
Russell Senior, President
russell at personaltelco.net