[chopsueyar]

Awesome story. I like the idea of a city or neighborhood LAN with an internet gateway.

This makes a lot of sense, especially when local online businesses want to serve their local community (like a local Groupon or live streaming of the neighborhood's Little League game from multiple cameras).

[bobo888]

Well, back then we didn't see it as a business. Of course there were also people who knew what they were doing, but if I remember well, my network started with three teenagers wanting to play Quake and Need for Speed. Then more and more people joined... hundreds of them.

Internet access wasn't a priority (most users wanted it for IRC, and there were very few local websites/services anyway). As long as we could share movies and play games, everything was fine.

Today things changed. I think that most users want 100 mbps internet access instead of 10 mbps internet + 1000 mbps LAN. But I'm confident that, if the ISPs fail, people could build their own networks as long as the State doesn't interfere.

The problem with US seems to be that the Government is bullying (through all kinds of regulation) small ISPs in order to protect the big guys.

---------- EDIT: I have to admit that (in 2003 or so) it felt good when a big telco, with a budget of millions, could barely provide 128 kbps, while the small ISP which I joined was providing 512 kbps internet access + 100 mbps LAN. Today I'm a subscriber of that big telco, because they managed to pull their stuff together and now provide a really good service (at least in my area). But Gov regulation had noting to do with it. It was the competition: improve your service or die. Plain and simple.