Wireless Over on Wes Flynn's blog, there have been many posts about wireless access to the internet for rural areas and small towns being the greatest thing since sliced bread. I don't disagree, but I have always had trouble explaining why I worry that poorly planned projects will saddle small towns with antiquated infrastructure if the deal is not done smartly and with Big Brother's guarantee to keep the information pipe modern and open, even if the corporate providers try to red-line these communities because it is unprofitable.

I have begun to believe that the radio waves, along the lines of cellular, will make the need for static local wireless networks obsolete in the very near future.

This guy, Andrew Lippman of MIT, does a much better job of explaining why the current four year old fad of 802.11 WiFi-as-we-know-it is about to become a story we tell our grandkids.

Before 1968 no one in the U.S. could connect anything to the AT&T telephone system unless Western Electric, AT&T's manufacturing arm, provided it. The Federal Communication Commission's landmark "Carterfone" decision erased that policy and ignited an explosion of communications innovations, including faxes, fast modems, PBXs, burglar alarms, answering machines and phone mobility. Although AT&T no longer owned the whole pie, the slice that it kept became part of a far larger industry.


That same explosive growth is beginning in wireless mobile. Microprocessors are now so fast that they can synthesize and handle directly both sound-and-image data and radio signals. Meanwhile the emergence of agile, end-to-end networks is creating unprecedented opportunities in what for 100 years have been staid communications structures. No matter what you think of the wireless devices you have today, you ain't seen nothing yet. Radio is just getting interesting.

"Back in the good old days, we used to have to use a thing called a computer to access the......"  ¶ 9:46 PM