MESSAGE
| DATE | 2016-05-18 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout-NYLXS] Cutting the isp
|
http://www.pcmag.com/news/344540/can-community-networks-break-the-grip-of-big-isps
Can Community Networks Break the Grip of Big ISPs?
By Sascha Segan
May 18, 2016 08:00am EST
10 Comments
At this year's Moogfest, the vision for future cities includes far more democratic access to the Internet.
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Pinterest
Reddit
Gigabit Internet
Build your own ISP. Broadcast your own media. Time Warner Cable doesn't have to own you. At this year's Moogfest, New America Foundation fellow Greta Byrum will be talking about the future of cities, a future which, if we work for it, might involve breaking free of the media and ISP oligarchs.
Moogfest Bug Art"There absolutely are alternatives, and I think it's really important to demonstrate alternatives in order to push policy-makers to really change the situation," she said. "A monopoly on telecommunications is really dangerous in a lot of ways."
Byrum helps lead the "resilient mesh wireless" project funded by Rise:NYC. It's a disaster-resistant mesh network in some parts of New York City offering a resilient alternative to the traditional cable Internet systems. Her project buys backhaul Internet from business ISPs and then connects neighborhoods using rooftop base stations and networks of Wi-Fi routers. While it's an alternative to New York's ISP duopoly, it isn't a purely community-driven project; it's funded by federal disaster-relief money and community development block grants.
Perhaps because it's publicly funded, Rise:NYC, like the LinkNYC Wi-Fi posts around Manhattan, has some restrictions that seem designed not to cut into the cable ISPs' business too heavily. Byrum's project is designed to offer hotspots in small businesses rather than primary home Internet access, she said, just as the Link posts are designed to offer Wi-Fi while out and about.
But Rise is meant to be a model, Byrum said. Communities could get together all on their own, start buying backhaul from business ISPs, and start their own home ISP networks.
"Kind of the secret that the telecom incumbents don't want to get out is that setting up Internet broadband sharing is not technologically all that difficult," she said. "The barriers exist mainly as market models."
Radio Is the New Radio
FM radio is also being liberated from the Clear Channels of the world, thanks in part to an Obama administration move to enable more low-power FM stations, Byrum said. FM radio stations are typically strictly licensed, but in 2013, a slew of new licenses opened up for smaller operators to run radio stations, mostly outside of major cities.
"These stations are really fascinating. The Internet is a tricky technology, and it's really prone to failure in an emergency. The technology that's really the most tried and true, proven to save lives over and over, is radio," she said.
A New Jersey man, Jim George, has been keeping a list of low-power stations on a website he's run since 1999. The site still looks like it's 1999, actually. He counts 1,906 licenses granted in the 2013 group, with eight new stations turning on just in the past two weeks.
//Related Articles
Moogfest Flips Tech's NC Boycott Script
Byrum also reminisced about when she had a "funny little radio station on my block," a true community effort. That's local pirate radio. Alas, it's illegal to operate your own unlicensed radio station, and you can be fined. But the Prometheus Radio Project, which advises a lot of the new low-power stations, says FCC agents may not pay attention to 1-watt stations, which "might go as far as a mile or two."
"If you're a technology and media nerd, and you learn radio, you'll be in love forever," Byrum said.
Byrum will be speaking at Moogfest on Thursday, May 19. PCMag.com is a media sponsor of Moogfest. To buy tickets, click here.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
_______________________________________________
hangout mailing list
hangout-at-nylxs.com
http://www.nylxs.com/
|
|
