Ham Radio Network

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Is there a way HAM radio type technology could be used to create a Free Internet, a network of mesh connections etc.. anyone smarter than me understand what I'm asking?
 
Is there a way HAM radio type technology could be used to create a Free Internet, a network of mesh connections etc.. anyone smarter than me understand what I'm asking?

We used to run all sorts of "networks" many years ago. Bulletin boards and packet clusters were all the rage, especially on 2-meters. There are hams currently experimenting and utilizing ad-hoc, high speed mesh networks at 2.4 and 5 GHz.
 
We're all spoiled with high speed internet and the days of 56k data speeds are long gone. Honestly yeah you could create a mesh of radio (probably above 5Ghz) but in the end it has to be plugged in somewhere. The carrier frequency determines how much data can be carried in the sidebands. So it's going to be microwave and that poses its own problems. Private networks rot and die on the vine, heck even private business to business networks are having a hard time surviving with so much broadband capacity. At the end of the day it all ends up getting plugged into the same internet backbone that even ISPs use.

By the time you're done purchasing all of the equipment and getting everything talking perfectly you could cajole a fiber internet provider to give you a 10GB connection. Then you can hoover up the internet and run everything local on your own storage. Alternatively get a connection from Elon Musks satellites and be happy with that.
 
We're all spoiled with high speed internet and the days of 56k data speeds are long gone. Honestly yeah you could create a mesh of radio (probably above 5Ghz) but in the end it has to be plugged in somewhere. The carrier frequency determines how much data can be carried in the sidebands. So it's going to be microwave and that poses its own problems. Private networks rot and die on the vine, heck even private business to business networks are having a hard time surviving with so much broadband capacity. At the end of the day it all ends up getting plugged into the same internet backbone that even ISPs use.

By the time you're done purchasing all of the equipment and getting everything talking perfectly you could cajole a fiber internet provider to give you a 10GB connection. Then you can hoover up the internet and run everything local on your own storage. Alternatively get a connection from Elon Musks satellites and be happy with that.
Watching the government taking away our free speech, had me thinking about alternative ways we can communicate while we are in this information war
 
We used to run all sorts of "networks" many years ago. Bulletin boards and packet clusters were all the rage, especially on 2-meters. There are hams currently experimenting and utilizing ad-hoc, high speed mesh networks at 2.4 and 5 GHz.
Yep. KA9Q


Internet providers even used one of Karn's later implementations for PPP over dialup (both for customers and as a cheap router).
 

Here’s one guy’s thinking on off-grid comms that serve some current internet uses. If it’s just about free internet, radio doesn’t have the bandwidth unless you’re talking StarLink-type technology.
 
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