Campaign for free national WiFi

fifo_2

Hmmmm,

Do we really know whether a fug of radio waves etcetera is potentially harmful ?

And if not, do we really want to be in a position where it is impossible to escape them.

There have been coverage that WiFi and DECT are potentially strong enough to have an effect on infants and small children, certainly there seems very strong data on sleep and concentration patterns.

hendersonb

nej wrote:

Not a good idea.

For a start it would decimate the home ISP business, putting thousands out of work.

Secondly, having everyone on one giant network is a very bad thing, security-wise.

Thirdly, the WiFi would have to assign an IP address to each device online. Using a Class A subnet, that would give a max of 16,581,375 addresses. That would be your limit as to how many devices are online at once. IPv6 will solve this problem, but at the expense of upgrading the entire Internet....

You wouldn't use a class A address for it - it would be setup the same way the internet is just now each ISP has its own IP address allocation which would be the same in a wifi network only the ISPs would be the local athorities or whoever they outsorced it to (probably the home ISP providers that someone was goona put out a job).

The problem with it would be it wouldn't work, come in way over budget and wouldn't be completed in our life times though if its a governent/Local authority scheme. Look at the problems with the NHS IT programme, this is infinately bigger a project than that. It scares me just thinking about.

derrick

hendersonb wrote:

come in way over budget

Just like everything ALL government schemes do, after all it is only our,(taxpayers), money.

troshy

The mobile or broadband companies should do this, not the government.

Maybe if a group of them came together, like what happened with digital terrestrial and Freeview, and offered 100k free 'broadband' to Urban areas in the UK, this would be a platform for them to get online, get the equipment, get used to it, get tired of slow speeds and upgrade to a more faster paid network. Would be a completely different business model but could work..

troshy

troshy wrote:

The mobile or broadband companies should do this, not the government.

Maybe if a group of them came together, like what happened with digital terrestrial and Freeview, and offered 100k free 'broadband' to Urban areas in the UK, this would be a platform for them to get online, get the equipment, get used to it, get tired of slow speeds and upgrade to a more faster paid network. Would be a completely different business model but could work..

Manchester have already thought of that...

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/technology/s/229/229797_free_broadband_linkup_for_everyone_.html

He said telecoms firms could provide free basic broadband as a loss-leader, offering the option of paying for faster services.