Factions in a Digital Age

Would a mesh network really solve the problem you are addressing? Even if a mesh would work in urban areas, you are still going to need backbones in order to move the data cross country/ocean. You would likely end up with small open nets linked through the same infrastructure we have today. It would seem likely to actually make the problem worse: If you have backbones, you have access points that are controlled by someone- either private parties or government. In a mesh, you only would have a few access points, versus the current accesspoint-per-house ISP model. Although the local mesh would be robust, there would seem to be far more risk of communications control having just a few access points to the backbones. I would think that having a wide selection of carriers to act as ISPs would be far preferable to solve the problem you are talking about (noting of course that the current duopoly ISP model is terrible)

-- TheodoreSmith - 05 Jan 2009