[BitPool] Mesh networks to bypass ISPs

[cbeast]

Greed will destroy you.

Still using dial up to connect to the Internet?

Or are you enjoying the benefits of the greedy companies that want to offer more and more speed to make money?

I'm paying through the nose for a slow connection to a cable monopoly granted by the local municipality.

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[franky1]

I like the part about having your bitcoin address tied to your computer. You could have your connecting client sign a transaction for verification.

I do like how the closer you get to the "real" Internet the higher the cost because of the assumed better bandwidth.

But there should be a way to pay (and charge) for the best speeds and higher traffic. This would encourage people to be like miners and upgrade their hardware often with the final result being blazing fast network speeds and high data ceilings.

as you say maybe part of the network connection code is when the wifi connection is made the user sends a signed TX to the relay which then authorises them to use the internet. and if it does not confirm on the blockchain, the relay disconnects the user.

the other part about paying for the best internet. its simple. if its "real" internet then its $1 per user connection. if it is relayed 1 hop $0.90
2hops $0.8,, and so on.. which can easily be accounted and pre-set when the relays are set up, because the relays will know how many hops to the real internet connection they are within the first minute of being screwed to a building, so no need to check daily, as its set.
the issue is that because of distance, there is no pay more to get more, as the distance is set (hops are a physical issue). if you ever used wifi repeaters/wireless extenders you'd know what i mean no extra money can make the laws of physics change

where the real money comes in would be if the real internet provider also owned the relays. that way each relay covering (example 25 users).

but it would however incentivise relays to get closer to a true internet connection, so the guy in the center currntly charging 50c, can then up his charge to $1 once he links his relay to a true internet connection in the centre.. but before that happens, users just throwing him extra funds wont get extra speed, purely by throwing extra funds then set charges

[franky1]

Greed will destroy you.

Still using dial up to connect to the Internet?

Or are you enjoying the benefits of the greedy companies that want to offer more and more speed to make money?

I'm paying through the nose for a slow connection to a cable monopoly granted by the local municipality.

~slightly off topic~
lets hope your not a miner, throwing bitcoins at a electric company. coz thats not being a bitcoin investor, but a electric utility investor
(you'd b surprised how many are selling all their coins as soon as its mined to cash back into FIAT)

[cbeast]

Greed will destroy you.

Still using dial up to connect to the Internet?

Or are you enjoying the benefits of the greedy companies that want to offer more and more speed to make money?

I'm paying through the nose for a slow connection to a cable monopoly granted by the local municipality.

~slightly off topic~
lets hope your not a miner, throwing bitcoins at a electric company. coz thats not being a bitcoin investor, but a electric utility investor
(you'd b surprised how many are selling all their coins as soon as its mined to cash back into FIAT)

I was a miner before ASICs and did have to switch to altcoins when Bitcoin mining was no longer profitable. But to bring this point on topic, we can't avoid monopolies in rural areas. Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

[franky1]

I was a miner before ASICs and did have to switch to altcoins when Bitcoin mining was no longer profitable. But to bring this point on topic, we can't avoid monopolies in rural areas. Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

true, thats why i went back to basics with the town idea, as after the 10th relay it would be much like dial-up.. or for the younger generation of tech savvi people... tor

relaying internet at 30-100 metres for 3000 miles (capetown to north africa) just wouldnt work, especially if there was a 1million population all trying to grab a bit of the real internet relay/node from the border of egypt (scenario where all african internet was shut off)

a 1:10 ratio of real-internet:user works, kinda... but not a 1:1,000,000

[cbeast]

Wouldn't the radius need to intersect the center of adjacent transmitters?

[xDan]

Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

Why? Is this a limitation of hardware generally available, licensing is required for high enough powered transmitting devices? Or what?

[cbeast]

Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

Why? Is this a limitation of hardware generally available, licensing is required for high enough powered transmitting devices? Or what?

Meshnets don't use high powered transmitters. They depend on non-licensed freqs.

[Eotnak]

Wouldn't the radius need to intersect the center of adjacent transmitters?

yes, but it looks like a hastily drawn diagram, so no big deal

[franky1]

Wouldn't the radius need to intersect the center of adjacent transmitters?

what bores me most is when someone knit picks a 2 second diagrams and they try to point out specifics, but with a simple 2 second glance, misses the points and specifics of the whole idea

want me to draw the planet and say the world will always be a round far after we all died. and wait a knit pick of that hills, mountains, values make it uneven, and house foundations make parts flat. to ignore the point that the world will be around. just to say its not perfectly ROUND

[cbeast]

Wouldn't the radius need to intersect the center of adjacent transmitters?

what bores me most is when someone knit picks a 2 second diagrams and they try to point out specifics, but with a simple 2 second glance, misses the points and specifics of the whole idea

want me to draw the planet and say the world will always be a round far after we all died. and wait a knit pick of that hills, mountains, values make it uneven, and house foundations make parts flat. to ignore the point that the world will be around. just to say its not perfectly ROUND

It's not really a minor point. If fact, it would be a major factor in the placement and power of the transmitters. It would be a huge deal for stationary users. Competition may even drive people to kill their neighbor's wifi. A useful network would be contracted with licensed transmitters and carefully placed.

For what you suggest: Mycelium's ad hoc network for Bitcoincard resolves this for mobile systems by limiting the bandwidth to sms sized messages.

[franky1]

It's not really a minor point.

its a illustration of a fantasy scenario. not a blueprint of a business plan..

we are just tossing around theories and idea's the picture is not any kind of final design, draft design or anything close.. so dont sweat the small stuff.. try concentrating on the main points of the topic not the fact that roads are not black, that grass is not that shade of green, that towns do not have an oval bubble around them, and not all buildings are the same shade of gray...

.. that should cover it

.. oops. not quite. my numbers were inaccurate for pricing, the userbase per relay was innacurate (you cant put 250 homes in a 30m-100metre diameter) the translucent colouring does not account for signal loss due to thick wall penetration vs open air.. radio waves are not red or blue in colour. the circle at the center of each relay represents something the size of a router, yet in the image it looks to be the width of one side of a road (width of a car).

oh, and the way.. do you know when an image is not suppose to depict exact positioning or relay's, which you would expect at a final stage of a town planning meeting...... when the picture is not even of a real/true existing town!

now have a nice day.. hopefully the posts will stay on the topic of the idea, and no longer meander off course with knitpicking

[cbeast]

Ask the Libertarians how a "free market" would create a functional meshnet.

[Elwar]

Ask the Libertarians how a "free market" would create a functional meshnet.

That's what we're discussing right now. Welcome to the discussion.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

Why? Is this a limitation of hardware generally available, licensing is required for high enough powered transmitting devices? Or what?

I would think that this type of setup would only be feasible in urban or suburban areas where population density is high. If population density is too low then users would rely on a small number of nodes for internet access, in other words there would only be one possible chain to get to the rest of the internet. These nodes would use some level of electricity when they are on and connected (or trying to connect) to the rest of the network. If the nodes are rarely used then a user may turn off their node (or they could turn off their node for any number of other reasons), cutting off internet access to others that rely on that node to get to the rest of the internet.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

(2)I like the idea of have the fees be distributed internally as each transmission could easily have 100 or more outputs if each node were to only transmit data 300 meters.

(2) well bitcoins are not sent 300 yards, they have to go through miners and sit on a blockchain. so thats means transactions need to be sent out of country to where there is internet. or if it was a new protocol (like meshcoin idea i brainfarted) then the principles of a blockchain as we see it today would be different.

If you needed to send data to a node that was 1,200 yards away then you would need to pay the node you send the data directly to (the one 300 yards from you), to the node it sends data to (total of 600 yards from you), the node 300 yards from the 2nd node (900 total yards from you) and the last node (the last payment is debatable, but lets say for arguments sake that we do pay the last one as well - total of 1,200 yards from you). This would involve sending payment to a total of 4 different nodes (a TX with 4 outputs).

Now for example if you needed to send data to a node 300,000 yards away (only ~170 miles) then you would need to send payment to 100 nodes (assuming the data can be sent in the most efficient manner). Payments would have to be set up this way as if they were not then all of the nodes would simply be relaying data for free (the net effect), as nodes would be getting compensated for receiving the data but having to pay to send it to the next node if it were not and nodes would have no incentive to relay data otherwise. 

(3)Another issue would be that of large websites that have a lot of traffic. Wouldn't surrounding nodes of where the node for major websites like CNN.com get overloaded with traffic?

(3) many websites have large userbase. but using the africa analogy. not every user would independently be sending data to the webwallet. instead the supernode that have a internet connection would (and they would be getting rich because of being the last node of the whole trip). if their computer couldnt handle such volume if suddenly 1million africans somehow all wanted to send data his direction all at the same time. then while offline another node with internet would relay it, getting the reward for doing so.

maybe part of programming the mesh network would be to ensure there were suitable supernodes that can handle large volume, and have limits of transmission per minute to allow a fair distribution for all nodes at the north african border who have internet. so that not only one node gets their part of the fee. eg to distribute the greed that one node isnt the only node transmitting to the webwallet

but these are all theories of how the back bone of a meshnetwork could turn out to be like in the future.. no one has really gone into too much detail about how value/balance would be confirmed in a non mining/short distance per-to-per network. or how transmission bloat/thousands of relays going through a single node at a country border  would be dealt with

These super nodes would be spending huge sums of money to send their data, not receiving huge sums of money. As with bitcoin the sender must always pay the fee. If the receiver was to pay the fee for data then a random node could simply send a bunch of junk data to random nodes that did not request and have no need for the data being received.

Having super nodes like this presents a couple of issues.

1- The nodes that connect to these super nodes, no matter how many connections the super nodes have would have to handle a lot more traffic then other nodes (that are not super nodes). This would ultimately result in the nodes that are connected to the super nodes to get overloaded with traffic.

2- Per my calculations a super node that has 1,000,000 connections would need to be able to connect to nodes ~95 miles away (this number is off due to rounding) in every direction. This would not only be technologically challenging to achieve this in itself but something with that much power would interfere with the communications with other nodes as there could only be a limited number of frequencies that could be used. This would mean that nodes within this 95 mile radius from the super node may not be able to communicate well (or at all) with other nodes.

[Stephen Gornick]

I'd like to share here some interesting links that I am sure most of you are already acquainted, but it seems to be important as reference:

Also, the Free Network Foundation (FNF) should be something to follow:

 - https://lists.thefnf.org/listinfo/discuss
 - http://lists.thefnf.org/pipermail/builders
 - https://lists.thefnf.org/listinfo
 - https://thefnf.org

And maybe SkyWire:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=380441.msg7588531#msg7588531

[Elwar]

Antennas using 802.11n have been able to achieve transmission distances over 300 km unamplified.

[DannyElfman]

I was a miner before ASICs and did have to switch to altcoins when Bitcoin mining was no longer profitable. But to bring this point on topic, we can't avoid monopolies in rural areas. Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

true, thats why i went back to basics with the town idea, as after the 10th relay it would be much like dial-up.. or for the younger generation of tech savvi people... tor

relaying internet at 30-100 metres for 3000 miles (capetown to north africa) just wouldnt work, especially if there was a 1million population all trying to grab a bit of the real internet relay/node from the border of egypt (scenario where all african internet was shut off)

a 1:10 ratio of real-internet:user works, kinda... but not a 1:1,000,000

If 10 relays would mean that speeds would be unbearably slow then wouldn't this cause incentives to essentially have several "central" local internet communities/websites

[xDan]

Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

Why? Is this a limitation of hardware generally available, licensing is required for high enough powered transmitting devices? Or what?

Meshnets don't use high powered transmitters. They depend on non-licensed freqs.

Okay. I assume you mean current meshnets. Are there no open frequencies that can be used for long distance communications?

Because yeah. It seems a true centrally-owned-infrastructure-free dream cannot be had if there is a monopoly on long distance comms, as you said.

Antennas using 802.11n have been able to achieve transmission distances over 300 km unamplified.

Well that is more interesting! If something like this could be used to link cities.

I'm guessing that terrain matters though and this "300km" was line of sight?