Phoenix Area Wireless Freenet? (PAWF!)

[der.hans]

Am 28. Dec, 2001 schwätzte David P. Schwartz so:

> Thanks for the link to that article, Hans.  I was ready to switch from
> Qwest DSL to Ricochet as soon as my DSL contract was up in August, but
> Ricochet died just before that.  Better than just after, I guess :-)

Yup.

> What it says in the article is the same as the other articles I've read.
> Phoenix is never mentioned among the possibilities when they get around to
> discussing which cities to turn back on, which is why I said what I did.
> I'd imagine that if somebody thought Phoenix is a useful market, then they
> might mention it at some point.

Only saw 3 cities mentioned, but that's also pretty well the only article
I've seen. Didn't realize the Aerie guys were the ones who were putting
fiber in gas pipelines. A shame they got bought out by a bunch of clods.

> I read another article that said the contracts with the agencies
> stipulated that failure to pay put Metricom in default, and that now the
> transmitters belong to whomever owned the lightpoles.

That's how someone described it to me at one point as well.

> Another approach might be for PLUG (or some other entity) to offer to

Inappropriate for PLUG, but AZOTO could be in a decent position :).

> acquire these units in exchange for bringing up the network again.  I'm
> sure there are lots of modems sitting in inventories around the country
> (eg., the company in Canada who'd invested in millions of dollars of
> inventory not long before the announcement) that could be had fairly
> cheaply.  This would be a great way to promote the use of Linux!!!

It might also be something for the wireless freenet, which is why I wanted
to look into it before.

> My only question is this: where is the ISP connection?  Do each of these
> "transmitters" have a phone line attached?  Or are they just repeaters?
> Or, where's the head-end equipment located, and who operates it?

I believe they route back to a land line every 6 or so transmitters, e.g.
there are local physically wired pops all over the place. That's where
things could get expensive.

> Also, are there any lawyers here who might want to venture a guess as to
> the IP rights garnered through a taking through default?  In other words,
> if APS owns these, say, because they were abandoned, can they license
> somebody else to use them without violating any patents or other licensing
> rights?

Having the equipment doesn't give us rights to use the patented tech ( no
matter how bogus the patents might be ). Aerie Networks owns all that. We'd
have to acquire licenses from Aerie or figure out how to operate everything
without infringing on the patents.

ciao,

der.hans
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