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Yet Another Tragedy of the Commons:
Midair Collisions on 2.4 GHz

  • After the Metricom debacle, LARIAT helped the local schools to engineer a 2.4 GHz network

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  • City government set up its own Wi-Fi network to connect buildings

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  • Two ISPs set up hubs. One ISP's customers were aimed directly at the other's hub... which had an omnidirectional antenna

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  • No spectrum coordination or etiquette. Result: many semi-reliable networks

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  • ISPs and schools responded by amplifying customers -- some legally, some illegally.

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  • LARIAT has stayed off 2.4 GHz outdoors (jumping directly to 5.8) to avoid becoming tangled in the mess. (We do have indoor Wi-Fi hotspots.)
Lesson #4: Outdoor Wi-Fi is becoming the CB of the 21st Century. What do we do?