Open-Mesh Computing

Your ISP is a dinosaur, and your RBOC is about to be toast. They just don't know it yet. The Linksys WRT54G wireless router offers the first step towards cooperative, distributed, open-mesh networking. In the world to come, all your devices will talk to all your other devices, and to everyone elses. If you need to access a web site or make a telephone call, the interface device you use will chart a route through whatever hardware happens to be between you and your target. Including cars, refrigerators, wristwatches, or whatever. No need for an ISP as a gateway, or a telephone company for a backbone. Everything gets done in a manner similar to the way Amateur Radio's Packet Radio networks work today.



Bob Cringely (The PBS Cringely, not the InfoWorld Cringely) has an examination of how the WRT54G can be used as a $70US Linux computer, which combines with some Open Source software to get you a DIY node on the nascent open-mesh computing network.

Only took thirty years to catch up with science fiction.