How to Build a Low-Tech Internet
- Author: LOW-TECH MAGAZINE
- Full Title: How to Build a Low-Tech Internet
- Category: articles
- Document Tags: #tech
- URL: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-internet.html
Highlights
- Telecommunication companies are usually reluctant to extend their network outside cities due to a combination of high infrastructure costs, low population density, limited ability to pay for services, and an unreliable or non-existent electricity infrastructure. (View Highlight)
- Most low-tech networks are based on WiFi (View Highlight)
- Although the WiFi-standard was developed for short-distance data communication (with a typical range of about 30 metres), its reach can be extended through modifications of the Media Access Control (MAC) layer in the networking protocol, and through the use of range extender amplifiers and directional antennas (View Highlight)
- The longest unamplified WiFi link is a 384 km wireless point-to-point connection between Pico El Águila and Platillón in Venezuela, established a few years ago. [3,4] However, WiFi-based long distance networks usually consist of a combination of shorter point-to-point links, each between a few kilometres and one hundred kilometers long at most. These are combined to create larger, multihop networks. Point-to-points links, which form the backbone of a long range WiFi network, are combined with omnidirectional antennas that distribute the signal to individual households (or public institutions) of a community. (View Highlight)
- Data Mules
Delay-tolerant networking can take surprising forms, especially when they take advantage of some non-traditional means of communication, such as "data mules". [11,29] In such networks, conventional transportation technologies -- buses, cars, motorcycles, trains, boats, airplanes -- are used to ferry messages from one location to another in a store-and-forward manner. (View Highlight)
- A "drive-by" WiFi network allows for small, low-cost and low-power radio devices to be used, which don't require line of sight and consequently no towers -- further lowering capital costs and energy use compared to other low-tech networks. [30,31,32] (View Highlight)
- Asynchronous search engines optimize for bandwith rather than response time. [26,30,31,35,36] For example, RuralCafe desynchronizes the search process by performing many search tasks in an offline manner, refining the search request based on a database of similar searches. The actual retrieval of information using the network is only done when absolutely necessary. (View Highlight)
- In a sneakernet, digital data is "wirelessly" transmitted using a storage medium such as a hard disk, a USB-key, a flash card, or a CD or DVD. Before the arrival of the internet, all computer files were exchanged via a sneakernet, using tape or floppy disks as a storage medium. (View Highlight)
- Just like a data mules network, a sneakernet involves a vehicle, a messenger on foot, or an animal (such as a carrier pigeon). However, in a sneakernet there is no automatic data transfer between the mobile node (for instance, a vehicle) and the stationary nodes (sender and recipient). Instead, the data first have to be transferred from the sender's computer to a portable storage medium. Then, upon arrival, the data have to be transferred from the portable storage medium to the receiver's computer. [30] A sneakernet thus requires manual intervention and this makes it less convenient for many internet applications. (View Highlight)
- The internet as we know it in the industrialized world is a product of an abundant energy supply, a robust electricity infrastructure, and sustained economic growth. (View Highlight)