Telecommunications providers who's names don't start with A, T, or T. (and how to stop using them)

[MrHacks]

As much as I support the Occupy Movement, you know what really grinds my gears about the Occupy Movement? Is the fact that they only protest against Bank of America and other big banks.

Sure there are plans to "Occupy Monsanto", but they seem to lack motivation to protest the other things near the corner of 8th and Market. Peabody Energy which is catecorner from BofA.  I guess you could include Ameren for trying to seditiously jacking up electric rates just so that they could get that second nuclear reactor in Callaway County and maybe Laclede Gas if they are involved in any fracking operations. But I suppose some enviromentalist could handle all of that.

But the secondary target should have been AT&T, for all the wrong they have ever committed including support for Internet Censorship, engaging in domestic spying for the NSA and Department of Homeland Security without a warrant (The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a whole lot of documents you should see, especially of the diagrams of the devices AT&T was going to use to spy on people), jacking up the price of their services for non-smartphone users, cohering people to use a smartphone by stating that they would be discontinuing 2G services (I'm sure your grandparents would love that), imposing data caps on users with unlimited internet access (because who needs a grandfather clause when you don't love having grandfathers using the telephone?), still hawking their obsolete wares as "new technology" (which is why Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Boost, Cricket, Clear, and even Charter Communications has all this way better stuff that is way better and actually IS new technology), anti-competitive behavior (apparently breaking Ma Bell up has taught AT&T nothing about being a better corporate citizen but more about how not to get caught the next time), lobbying for corporate control of the Internet (who was in Ted Steven's pocket and who is in Lamar Smith's pocket now?), shutting off phone service to the elderly, disabled, and poor who need phone service as an assistive technology (Ayn Rand would be so proud of them), and all around being a huge corporate dick.

No wonder hackers don't trust AT&T.  Why should the general public trust them either to provide them telephone, Internet, or Cable TV services?  Because they are the only game in town?  I mean, in St. Louis there is no Comcast or Verizon to provide home phone service or FIOS.  No community phone companies like in parts of Rural Missouri.  No CenturyTel or third party providers other than Charter to hook you up with high speed Internet.  I suppose you could get HughesNet, but satellite Internet service is more reserved for rural areas and they have very low bandwidth caps.

So what if there was a way to open source what the big telecoms do?  For example, where do they get their TV programming?  Generally more sophisticated satellites, the large B.U.D.s (Big-Ugly-Dishes) that likely get their technical data from sites like LyngSat (http://www.lyngsat.com/) to receive broadcasting signals that they redistribute in exchange for a monetary cost.  (I've always wondered if the cable companies get free satellite TV but still have to pay for the premium channels).  Small-dish services like DirecTV and Dish Network work similarly to the cable company in that they serve as a proxy between the producers and the consumers.

Of course, barriers have been such that the proxy services are cheaper than doing it directly.  Mainly the cost of capturing the feeds on you own is more expensive than if you used a provider.  And then the providers (both the producers and the proxies) have manipulated the laws such that you must purchase their services rather than receiving it gratis. (That's capitalism for you!)  But even that hasn't stopped people from using pirate boxes or stealing cable from the neighbors, which IS wrong.

The right way really shouldn't be to just pay for these services, because these services are the proxies who have simplified the processes of acquiring communications so that the consumer can use them.  You want to be at the proxy level of the distribution chain such that you know how to get the feeds directly, what you are doing isn't considered "stealing" or "piracy", and such that you can access the feeds just as you would with terrestrial broadcasts with the old rabbit ears. (Although, I have yet to see anyone use an HDTV for solely picking up the local six or seven channels.)  If we can get electricity from the sky (via solar panels), why not telecommunications services?

It's probably because there isn't any open source satellites in space yet picking up the feeds being bounced between the commercial satellites.  There are plans to send a rocket up their in the future such that you won't need some big telecom or satcom to get services. This method is also being suggested in the event of natural disasters or oppressive regimes.  But with NASA still grounded (which is a greater threat to humanity than any terrorist attack), plans to shoot up such a satellite for "scientific purposes" haven't made any progress, at least not publicly.

MeshNets are a good start, but what happens when an authoritative government becomes wise to your backyard can-tenna?  There is always some need to provide access and privacy while at the same time stopping those who don't want that.

So what do you think is a solution to this problem?  How can we truly be connected to the Internet without limitations or barriers?

[Oren Beck]

Let's split the tech from the politics, eh?

Networking infrastructure is TANSTAAFL incarnate. Even so?

Deploying a "darknet" is non trivial. Here's why:

Yes- we can do a percent of paths and even clouds from post-consumer scrappages. The rest of the systems get less practical for a mass media but good enough for Hackerdom. .

Well- cantennas are a point-to -point medium quite useful for that topology, Shielding cantennas with a 10 foot or larger old school sat tv dish for example makes interception "less likely" and if you run in closed loop QRP maintain modes it's safer still. Simply put- the RX end feeds back RSSI and the TX end lowers till either Bit Error Rates or raw RSSI- or voting between QoS factors dictate a power increase. If a highly loss tolerable path is good enough- the invisibility factor improves. Ends up as- yeah- we can do it by trading YouTube for Usenet and Fidonet replacing Firefox.

Going a step back from videos to simple text makes "networking" use less overhead resources.

There is one existing comsat that is totally passive. The Moon is a Handy Reflector?

Do notice my absent politics stance in the "tech only part" .

We're likely not far apart on politics and in many ways I'm often 100% Zero Tolerance for Human Rights violations. But we risk forking and fragmenting the tech persons by divisionist rhetoric contamination of tech forums.

This is "your" sandbox and you've got editorial oversight of such things. Choose wisely.  Dissent is a DUTY in this Democracy and educating the consumers should be an equally mandatory social value. Sadly- informed consent is deprecated. Good work on spreading the fact we have alternatives. 

Also -  *WE* are John Galt ans yes- WE can make the lights go out by simply showing them that yes- their hero Rand's postulate would work, just not on "their" terms :} 

They don't "get it" that if we the real technoforces all call in sick of their crap- it- the tech- will swiftly fail epically. Atlas Is..us. We're sadly too ethical to crash their world the same way they tried with the debt crap. At the end of days- Karma will prove who is evil or not. Sucks to be them, eh?

[MrHacks]

I think you missed the point. For the most part this thread was about my total disgust with AT&T. (This isn't Arch Reactor when we put our heads in the sand when someone mentions SOPA.)

I agree the Network Infrastructure isn't a free lunch, but we shouldn't have to live off the table scraps.  Last time I check, there wasn't a shortage of data in the world.

The world needs more books on telecommunications, especially on the equipment that is currently being used. (And by equipment, I don't mean on the consumer end (i.e. Smartphones, Tablets, or Computers) but the  Proxy and Production side.  That is where the whole "maker-ness" is. It might not be making little toys in a workshop, but it shouldn't be like building an automobile assembly line in your garage either.

The world is in need of a new set of mad scientists. People with ambitions for a better world even if the world isn't in tune with their ideologies or skill sets.

[Oren Beck]

Oh- I "get it" about all Kleptocratic Oligarchies including pa bell playing en femme as ma bell.

I was denoting fixes in a brutal reality check mode with no detraction of your politics or the  well earned scorn for "telecombandits"

see- I've been building and maintaining analog point-to-point voice since maybe age 14? I'm 49 now.. Every day teaches me how little I've learned and how little our world remembers.

We fracking used to run STEAM TRAINS coast-to-coast @ 100MPH plus. We had Supersonic planes in revenue common carrier service! All tied together by for better or worse- folks like US that made it happen. We hopefully might do so again and more.

A lack of testicular matter was an old phrase that's horridly sexist as we've now many gifted techs with no such genetics:>

The EPIC FAIL of those telecom robber barons was in losing sight of what the railroad barons never lost sight of. Being more than merely price competitive. They arguably drove the entire market pricing DOWN per ton/mile!

A few telecom niches "Get It" on such concepts. Whitespace radio, "Different models of geosync platforms" and Earth-Moon-Earth broadcast paths WILL be elements of a game changing overturn in communications.

"why orbit a cloud of picosats when you can tether them to a platform.. think dandelion seeds" 


Oren Beck

816.729.3645