I’m attempting to understand why there is no distributed Internet.
It seems to be that the existence of a shortwave radio based Internet would have hugely beneficial implications.
To my understanding shortwave has extreme range. Would this not allow for Internet access in rural areas where traditional Internet is simply impossible or extremely impractical?
It also seems to me that it would be possible to distribute the load, thus obviating the need for both a central infrastructure and fees.
It seems to me that one could adopt an almost bit torrent model where in those who want to share can, those who don’t don’t.
Now I am extremely ignorant on this, but I’m trying to correct that. Any comments with additional information would be great.
My question is basically the same as the one I posted to Wiki answers.
What prevents the existence of shortwave radio distributed Internet?
It seems that data transmission over shortwave is at least technically possible. According to this page anyway.
It seems that shortwave for commercial purposes is illegal, which is all well and good, indeed that may work for us here. But what about for non profit?
Would it be legal to make a Shortwave non profit radio Internet service provider?
Does it even matter? I mean, couldn’t this type of thing be hosted from anywhere in the world pretty much?
I want more data. Please comment if you have some 🙂
Update:
Apparently it exists! but it needs development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio
This page contains a particularly disgusting bit of text…
One notable detail is that 2.4 GHz WLAN band is partially overlapping amateur radio band, and thus WLAN hardware can readily be used by amateur radio licensed operators with higher power radio gear than what the general population “license free” usage allows. (“Free to receive by anybody”, “transmit only between licensed radio amateurs”, and “[2]no encryption” rules usually make these very unappealing to spend time on.) Regulation details differ around the world.
No encryption? That is simply disgusting to me. It’s like transparent backpacks, searches without warrants, wire tapping, etc.
Mayhaps it’s time to start a new form of piracy harkening back to the old days. Maybe our enemy needs to be the FCC again, instead of the RIAA and Comcast.
The reason is very simple – the available bandwidth in the shortwave range is very limited.
It is many orders of magnitude less than what would be necessary for internet of any sensible speed and cappable of servicing a sensible number of users at a time.
This limitation is not caused by insufficiently andvanced technology. It is a limit that is imposed by the laws of the physics and no technology can circumvent it.
So it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to have shortwave internet unless you can call it “internet” one that has a speed of about few bytes per second.
Or alternatively, if you are wealthy enough, you can “buy” from the government the entire shortwave band for your private use. Then it will be sufficient for several megabytes per second.
The reason is very simple – the available bandwidth in the shortwave range is very limited.
It is many orders of magnitude less than what would be necessary for internet of any sensible speed and cappable of servicing a sensible number of users at a time.
This limitation is not caused by insufficiently andvanced technology. It is a limit that is imposed by the laws of the physics and no technology can circumvent it.
So it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to have shortwave internet unless you can call it “internet” one that has a speed of about few bytes per second.
Or alternatively, if you are wealthy enough, you can “buy” from the government the entire shortwave band for your private use. Then it will be sufficient for several megabytes per second.
I’m not qualified to answer that from a technical standpoint, but it seems counter intuitive to me that a medium capable of supporting multiple real time audio conversations would be capable of at least modem speeds.
Can you explain in layman’s terms why something like cell phones or WiFi couldn’t be done over shortwave? Physically speaking I mean, not legally.
Also to my understanding there is already a community of short wave data transmission enthusiasts. As explained in the post above.
As I said I have no real technical reason to say this but I find the idea that a short wave distributed internet is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, frankly absurd. But of course reality is under no obligation to conform to my view of it. 🙂
I’m not qualified to answer that from a technical standpoint, but it seems counter intuitive to me that a medium capable of supporting multiple real time audio conversations would be capable of at least modem speeds.
Can you explain in layman’s terms why something like cell phones or WiFi couldn’t be done over shortwave? Physically speaking I mean, not legally.
Also to my understanding there is already a community of short wave data transmission enthusiasts. As explained in the post above.
As I said I have no real technical reason to say this but I find the idea that a short wave distributed internet is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, frankly absurd. But of course reality is under no obligation to conform to my view of it. 🙂
I have some plans, whats in it for you?
What I want is an internet you simply can’t kill so long as there are machines to connect to it and people to use them. To get a complete picture of what I’m about, start here and follow up: http://underlore.com/the-apex/
This same idea just spring to my mind then here I am. Any findings?
I think this could be overcome through an strategy of data compression and distribution. Anything like grouping similar data blocks and associate each of them to a specific frequency, and using machine learning technics to guess what would be the right data to reconstruct.
By other hand, I think this decentralization process will be possible and accomplished only in the future by some sort of quantum entanglement technic.
Nothing yet. I suspect the solution is literally already in our hands. Smart phone mesh network. Peer to peer. This net need not be blinding fast, just distributed and durable. Tesla’s orbital Internet will happen as well. Still, short wave internet should happen.
Perhaps shortwave sms would be a good starting point and to always be able to send and receive a text anywhere could grow into larger packet audio data then packet video data via improvements.
Excellent idea! You could start that with an app even. Mesh net sms.
The technology is already here:
http://nordic.businessinsider.com/this-finnish-startup-has-a-solution-to-internet-get-anywhere-and-just-raised-more-than-$10-million-in-series-a-funding-2016-10/
Gotta love the secrecy. Everyone wants to patent the vowels when they grow up. /smh
Ok guys not to rain on a parade,
There was the gent who mentioned bandwidth. Think of bandwidth as space in the transmission signal for things like modulation, compression and other components that help guarantee uniformity in signal so that results and conditions for transmission of data is predictable when the outside environment is not.
Data transmission over shortwave is possible and has been done for 100+ years. This is called MORSE code. This is simple yes and not considered data by today’s standard. But think about what MORSE is. It’s a click or beep in a pattern that is easily picked out from the noisy background of the Shortwave band.
Because of the narrow bandwidth between channels, overlap, ambient noise and drop because of environmental interference is almost guaranteed at any given minute on any channel.
Voice and MORSE are well suited because these are not being compressed and are being recorded and transmitted in a rather flat wave that sounds “good enough” to interpret.
Sending data Via POCSAG, RTTY, AHC (insert packet protocol here) would not be possible because of the nuances in the audible tone of the packets. There would be parts of packet that would be left out because the bandwidth is too small. It may be good enough to hear a voice in it’s mid ranged nasally style but lacks the clarity to catch all of the intricate modulation to receive all of the packet.
I hope this made some sense. I don’t have a lot of experience other than transmitting the Internet over CB Radio and FM.. Both Illegal, please don’t do it.
And remember you can never create a guaranteed connection to the internet. We are just one political disagreement away from the powers that be, creating a kill switch and then you just have a radio connection to nothing.
My suggestion is read up on packet radio.
Thank you for your comment. I’ve seen people say similar things before in this context, but I still don’t feel like this answers my question. Firstly I don’t see how a kill switch could be done, I mean, are you talking about some state level actor jamming the entire shortwave domain? Couldn’t like the rest of the planet object to that?
No, I mean at the distribution level of the internet, routers, switches and embedded servers have been standardized and regulated to the point that writing tools to disable them is a trivial matter, especially for a well funded nation.
Doing so through regulation is happening, ironically through the repeal of net neutrality (not morphing into a political rant). This is allowing companies to put more sophisticated tools into place to filter, throttle and block traffic. The thought is this will be used to their own profitable ends but the unsettling reality is it can be used to the governments dictation in the future and the Fed didn’t have to find any large domestic project to do it themselves.
My suggestion again is to read about packet radio and really focus on some offbeat protocols with redundancy, you would really need it if you plan on using shortwave.
Also check out a project called outernet, its a receive only project but it allows to gather information from a sat feed for just the cost of the board and PC/Phone/Tablet/RaspberryPI
So after sitting and having a think about this. Here is the wiki quote for shortwave.
Amateur radio operators in many countries are allocated several shortwave bands for private, non-commercial use. Amateur radio is a communications service, educational tool and hobby. It is particularly useful in providing emergency communication where standard telecommunications infrastructure is compromised or nonexistent, such as a disaster area or remote region of the globe
This provision is put into place for common folk to use shortwave as a hobby and to learn on. Encryption is discouraged because it threatens the openness of the domain. Very hard to learn if you don’t understand what is being done and why.
Automated Data is frowned upon because computers generate excessive traffic and on SW to hit long range at a decent baud rate(speed) you would have to use several channels with purposefully designed “sloppy radios”. As a result you run the risk of unwittingly “stepping on” other users of the band who could be using it for emergency communication, school projects, etc…
If you have a proclivity to want to use this on the DL, I could think of many other modes than SW.
The other problem with using SW as an atmasse gateway for internet access is that the modulation would be so slow that negotiating multiple clients would slow things down tremendously.
Server: keys down and transmits a handshake.
You: requests page
Me: requests page
Server: sends your html first
Server: sends my html next
Server: sends a couple bits from images to you
Server: sends a couple bits from images to me
Server: sends some [THIRD USER INTERUPTS MAKING A PAGE REQUEST]
You: Lost packets for original page request and makes [ME GETS IMPATIENT AND TRANSMITS PAGE REQUEST]
And all the while, Liberal has a third civil war and can’t guide citizens to allied safe zones because all of the packets from our cat videos hits the ionosphere and drowns their life saving instructions with data bursts.. And as a result of our thirst for Knitten’ Kittin’ Friday, the rebels trap civilians and turn them into lampshades.
“If you have a proclivity to want to use this on the DL, I could think of many other modes than SW”
Possible to tells us more or point in the right direction for research?
Thanks.
“I don’t have a lot of experience other than transmitting the Internet over CB Radio and FM..”
Particularly more about this
My first trip to Venezuela happened to coincide with the timing of a college football national championship game I really wanted to watch (Gators versus that other major Florida team). The home we stayed in had a computer in the back that was indeed connected via modem to an antenna that leveraged shortwave to make a connection to a tower about an hour away in Caracas at the building where my brother in law worked. The connection sucked but it worked.
Thank you! That information is incredibly helpful.
My knowledge is mostly generalised, but the main issues to using radio for connectivity is bandwidth and multiplexing. I suppose in theory using both Frequency Modulation and Amplitude Modulation at SW might be partial solutions to enable multiple concurrent connctions, but the shear potential numbers of people would be far greater than even theoretical capacity.
As a one to many service it could work to supply data transmission of news that could include say pictures, but then aren’t we just reinventing the wheel on digital TV or even Ceefax / Teletext.
There are pirate stations I understand who occupy certain frequency ranges though already. In todays world they might prove instrumental in the war against disinformation, or they just become further tools for the spread of wild conspiracies.
A kind of better option for an altnet would be a mesh of wireless devices, getting WiFi and Bluetooth devices relaying and acting as routers could work in urban areas. There are some social applications trying to do this I think, they share data when in close enough proximity. The sheer numbers would make shutting such a network down challenging, but simply filling those wireless frequencies with loud noise would do it.
Excellent comment thank you, and one I agree with. It’s a shame to say this but I don’t think there are any technological solutions. Nothing can stand up to concerted efforts to destroy it. It’s a siege mentality. Man I miss and remember being optimistic.