Lanlink Linking The Coasts

Dan Bricker writes "A guy in Parma Heights, Ohio has a website to promote an idea of linking the east coast to the west coast using standard off-the-shelf 802.11 equipment. He is aiming for a July 4th, 2006 first coast-to-coast ping. This project appears to be totally volunteer based, With no other stated reason than fun with pringle cans and bad weather, and do it just to do it. Can this be done? What real world applications does this have?"

Warchalking

[Entropy248]

is now obsolete... And I just spent the past 15 minutes learning all the stupid glyphs!

Re:Reminds me of the mid-1980's

[TopShelf]

I truly think that the geeks of America could do this. After all, they wouldn't have to actually stand next to each other, just within a hotspot radius...

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

A group of amatures has decided to prevent future energy problems in California. The plan is to route extension cords, connected serially, to California from a power plant on the east coast. When asked if the extension cords could handle the force, they said that it wasn't for everyone, mainly a proof of concept. They made no comment to the argument that there wouldn't be hardly any current left in California. They are taking donations of extension cords of all kinds. "Just as long as it has a ground pluggy thing"

I was going to...

[niko9]

invest in some blue chip stock, but I think I'll ivest in some obscure potato chip company instead. :p

Re:What "real world" applications???

[spoco2]

"Second Internet" - Man, how cool would that be... a completely underground (reverse pun intended... gettit... it's overgrou... oh never mind) Internet, detatched from the 'real' one...

In case of an all out war, the 'real' internet may be shut down, but this air based one could keep on keeping on... although without electricity after the war, only as long as all the laptop batteries lasted... so really only about 1 hour after the strike... just long enough for the users to start a thread:
"Woh! What was that?"
"Dunno... kinda bright though"
"Dude... I think this is bad"
"Yup"
"BBFN"

Re:Reminds me of the mid-1980's

[RJHill]

So...um...this would be called LANs Across America?
/me ducks and runs for cover.

Pings Across America

[Mannerism]

He is aiming for a July 4th, 2006 first coast-to-coast ping.

Considering the latency, I'd aim for July 4th, 5th, and 6th.

Main problem...

[michaelggreer]

No more pringles cans. [nwsource.com]

Location, location, location

[boatboy]

This would be so much easier in Panama...

Re:What "real world" applications???

[whereiswaldo]

I think before I spent a significant amount of cash on a project like this I would like to be assured that the government wouldn't shut it down for some reason. Cool things often are, it seems. And if not the government, then hopefully not a stupid company and its lawyers who would come running and say (short of breath) "hey! that's miiine! I THOUGHT OF IT FIRST GODDAMM *cough cough* IIITTT!"

Whoa

[buzzonga]

Are we talking about a giant, shared, 10mbs pipe across the US that we could all use together? Wow, that would really last for at least 10 seconds. Talk about /. effect....

LAST POST!

[realdpk]

LAST POST!!

Re:What "real world" applications???

[clambake]

"Woh! What was that?"
"Dunno... kinda bright though"
"Dude... I think this is bad"
"Yup"
"BBFN"


I read the last line as "Be Back Friggin Never"

what if...

[mattkime]

we just unroll a 4k mile roll of ethernet?

Promontory, Utah

[clambake]

May 10, 2004 ... The day that the golden pringles can [pringles.com] finally links the Union Pacific and Central Pacific kazaa servers through 802.11b.

Re:He'll need lots of volunteers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, that's a pretty easy problem to solve. For those places, you use a solution that's been proven to work over big empty spaces: TCP/IP over carrier pigeon.

Re:Reminds me of the mid-1980's

[Niadh]

So, all we have to do is get those people to line up from coast to coast again while hold hands, and then run a moderately large sized modulating electric current thru them and vola! A ping from east coast to west coast not using the internet.

It's not about "Can we, the geeks, mobilize." It's about if we, the geeks, think that it would be worth doing. I would say no. Off the shelf wireless is not up to this task. Sure it can be done but not effectively. And there is no immediate need for a user run Internet (or non-Internet, whatever) backbone. It would be neat but in the end, going thru a few 1000 access points, I don't think the ping time or transfer rate will be close to useful. Thats all that matters to me. If the thing can do what it was designed for. I'll stick with using fiber for distance and wireless for lans/mans.

Re:Reminds me of the mid-1980's

[f3dallah]

Well, at least *sit* within a hotspot's radius...

Re:other non-commercial world-wide networks

[poopdik]

Just read that back, if anyone makes a "don't call me shirley" joke I will cause them pain.

Shirley, you must've been smokin' crack.

Re:what if...

[rcw-work]

4000 miles is 6437376 meters. Assume a non-ethernet signal is run over this 4000-mile cat5 cable at 1mhz. Attenuation per 100 meters is 2.0dB, or 128746dB for the whole thing. Thus, you would need an input voltage 2^42915 times more powerful than your receiver can distinguish.

The significance of such a voltage would, I am afraid, be comprehendable only by slashdot's lameness filter.

Ergo, the repeater/digipeater.