The solution to Internet censorship and bandwidth rationing

[thunder rising]

In the early days of radio there sprouted a group of radio enthusiasts that formed the Ham Radio network. What is needed is an analogy to that effort.

Given that radio transmitters below a certain power are unregulated the ability exists for people to operate station to station routers. The only obstacle to this citizens band Internet is the cost for individuals (Boy Scouts?) to develop such routers. Ham radio became a popular free forum because anybody that could solder a couple of tubes and wrap wire around a nail could participate. The problem with small microwave repeaters is that the cost and diligence needed to make a station to station router and the necessary software is beyond most of the population that would participate. However, the technology is well within the cost boundaries of the router industry. We already have wireless routers. Now we need station to station repeaters that would mirror the backbone owned by the corporations.

I post this idea occasionally to keep it on the minds of those of us that fear the censorship of the Internet. It's not bad now, but we know that a SCOTUS that can unleash foreign money as "speech" can rule that bandwidth is owned by the corporations and can be rationed as they see fit.

Perhaps the answer is not to regulate them, but to leave them behind.

[Fumesucker]

1. It can be done by upgrading the firmware on some routers..

For instance the Linksys WRT54GL Wireless router.

http://lifehacker.com/178132/hack-attack-turn-your-60-router-into-a-600-router

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD-WRT

Here's a list of features you can implement..

[Llewlladdwr]

2. I'm trying to get my mind around this...

but I'm just not understanding. What is a 'station-to-station' router? What would make it different from a 'station-to-station' repeater? Are you just talking about wireless access points? Is this network somehow independent of the existing internet? If so, ho do you communicate with the current internet?

[thunder rising]

3. A parallel network.

There is a problem that at some point either the content providers would need to connect in or there would need to be some connect to the existing streams. There are a couple of spins on the taps: one is that they would help alleviate the bandwidth problem, the other is that it wouldn't matter if the taps were 10 ft from the source the carrier would scream.

The ROUTER would decide if the incoming message was local or needed to be passed on.

Thinking about it, the scenario can be created now. The wireless routers definitely need to be weatherized so they could sit on a roof. Then as first poster showed, just configuring the router is all it would take.

The real challenge would be to make it simple enough for an interested albeit non-technical person could configure it. Like the ham radio. There were plenty of people that were just interested in listening and passing on news that were not very technically inclined.