[cap-talk] phones as routers

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:58:24 -0700,
John Carlson <john.carlson3 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> When are we going to be able to communicate from phone to phone (or  
> computer to computer) w/o going through a centralized capitalistic  
> service provider?

[...]

> If this is old hat, someone slap me with a piece of spaghetti.

TerraNet in sweden did this in Tanzania and Ecuador.  VoIP + mesh
networks are another approach.

> Obviously, I am not a network engineer, who would tell me there are a  
> limited number of frequencies available, and someone needs to  
> allocate frequencies.

This was true years ago.  If it were still true, WiFi could not exist.
See this for a gentle introduction:

Spectrum Wants to Be Free
by Kevin Werbach
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/view.html

Thanks,
Marcus