On the repeaters, could you use two antennas, one for receiving and one for sending? Only the final repeater antenna would need to be omni-directional.

Through a combination of wired (ethernet cables), and wireless (routers/repeaters/directional-antennas), could the connection stretch ¼-mile?

They all have to send and receive, unless you use 4 antennas. Would there be an advantage to splitting these two functions?

I've heard of municipal WiMAX networks being planned...

This internet problem is a good example of what's wrong with the 'free-market'. Because there is no real profit-motive to provide people like me with internet that doesn't come out of a camel's ass, they make no effort to do so. I have no doubt they would profit by providing this service, but the profit is not enough to warrant any decent effort. They don't care about my life. They don't care about anything except profit. In the case of internet, it's not so bad. I'm not going to die without decent internet, but it does fuck up my life. And if you relate this case to cases of actual necessity, you can see clearly how horrible the 'free-market' tends to be. What happens when it isn't profitable to feed someone?

If government was going to intervene, maybe it should only do so just enough to eliminate these kinds of cases. The 'free-market' will take care of most people, but it will not take care of everyone. For people outside the service-area (like me), maybe the government should be involved?

The people outside of private coverage-areas make up a vast minority. Comcast is happy to lay a block of cable if it amounts to 100 subscribers. What they will not do, is lay a block of cable which only amounts to 1 subscriber. What this means, is that the 'free-market' covers most people. The minority is nothing like 49% compared to 51. It is more like 99% compared to 1%. Because this is how things works, it isn't terribly dangerous or costly employing the government to cover the remaining 1%.

I'd like to thank the esreality community for being so supportive. Your ideas presented in this thread have done great things for the technological world of internet provision. I've never encountered such inventiveness and genius. Dickheads. Tell me something, when you 'connect' with idiots and other men, does it make you gay and stupid?

I've got the perfect solution to global warming: kill all the stupid worthless jackasses. We can no longer afford to wastefully produce Co2. We can start with the Quake community, who seem perfectly content to wade around in failure, doing nothing more than looking at titty-pictures to validate their claimed sexuality.

If you want to produce Co2, you should contribute something of actual value to cancel-out and counter-act the pollution constantly coming out of your mouths.

Here we go again...

You can say whatever you want to me. It's a free-speech internet. I don't get offended. Besides, if you are a massive ass, it helps me practice self-restraint.

Instead of talking to me, why not discuss the subject? The issue is expanding good internet to everyone. On this subject, do you have nothing to contribute? You have no reason to address me, only to address the idea.

And yes, the Quake community is single-handedly responsible for the failures we have endured all these years. A game is reflective of its community.

People are the destroyers. Simply by existing and not correctly contributing, they destroy the species. Global warming exemplifies this syndrome.

I have a suitable and easily realized solution for your end of the problem.

Should he kill himself or something?

well done, Mr. Watson.

I feel raped.

And its not that pleasant "Hello" rape you've been hearing about.

If 1 penny is removed per-month from everyone's salary, it amounts to 3 million dollars per month (300 million people divided by 100). How many people could we feed, clothe, shelter, and provide decent internet to, with 3 million dollars per-month? 1 penny is not exactly communism.

One minute you claim that most useless people are quakers and thus the people who use Internetus, then you ask everyone to put some money into a projectus to give people like yourselfus more and better...Internet? Hello, Santa!...
Instead replying to you, we shall...what? discuss?
I have a better discussing subject, ask yourself, is Jonesy really an idiot, or just a troll ?

Let's raise it to $1. Excluding children and possibly illegals, that would amount to $250 million per-month. That could easily cover whatever the 'free-market' will not.

If you want to know why your taxes are so high, it has nothing to do with the so-called 'liberals'. It has everything to do with the so-called 'conservatives' and their obsession with unnecessary, 'better safe than sorry' military.

You want a real government threat? How about the threat of your government turning this massive military, which you stupidly allowed them to remove 50% of your earnings to pay for, back on its own people? How could we, the people, use our 2nd amendment Rights to fend off such an enormous and powerful construct?

or better yet, what if a giant fish jumps from the hudson river and lands straight on the statue of liberty?

we, the people, would be in horror.

Like Benjamin Franklin said, "Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither and will lose both". You think this insane military is protecting you from foreign threats. Even if that is true, it simultaneously endangers you to domestic threats. The only thing we can do is dismantle this ridiculous monstrosity. The military bases in 70% of the worlds nations are the key. They are a waste of tax-dollars, almost none of them make us safer from foreign threats, and they can be used against their own people.

There should be a new Amendment limiting Senatorial approval of treaties so foreign military bases are only allowed after direct conflict and for a temporary time-period.

But yes, if you simply use the government to make up for whatever the private-sector lacks, it will keep government intervention to a minimum while keeping coverage to a maximum. Because the private-sector is driven by profit, they would ensure government intervention (something driven by loss), interferes to the smallest degree. If the government gives food to starving people, corporations cannot sell food to starving people.

These foreign military bases represent, at best, a waste of enormous amounts of money and the existence of an extreme paranoid stupidity within the Union. At worst, the bases represent a military coup, to be perpetrated by our own government, against our own people. Almost all of the bases, if not all, should be immediately dismantled. It is already difficult making a Constitutional case for their existence. Nowhere in the powers of Congress is the Senate granted the power to agree to a treaty involving military bases. It defies the thinking which created the Constitution; a thinking based on the knowledge domestic threats are as great, if not greater, than foreign.

On the economic front, by using government to make up for private-sector shortcomings, it motivates the private-sector to find new, profitable solutions. This enables the nation to achieve total coverage while maintaining maximum profit at minimal government intervention.

So is this guy actually crazy, or just a troll with way too much free time who tries too hard?

I like to think of him as esr's version of Hunter S. Thompson. Reading his comments in johnny depp's voice is rather enjoyable.

I always read them in Homer J. Simpsons voice.. maybe that's what I've been doing wrong.

i like comcast

friends don't let friends use comcast. at least not in new england :(

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

This is the only part of the entire Constitution I can find validating in any way whatsoever the existence of these military bases. I'm sure, 200 years ago, our founders could not envision a scenario where we would install military bases in 70% of the world's nations. The simple fact is, of course they would reject any such military implementation (these military bases are in direct conflict with the spirit of all other granted military powers), which I why, to be sure, we should amend the Constitution to prohibit the Senate from agreeing to this specific treaty measure.

Dude, you are on a nerd site. You are not impressing anybody. Copy and paste political views else where.