I've thought about this a lot. Right now, there's an international (very low speed) sort-of internet based in Amateur Packet Radio. Everyone has a 2meter FM (range 5-10 miles over flat turrain; up to 300 to a tall mountain through a repeater) handi-talky on their belts and a 1200 (a little 2400) *half duplex* modem with which they check into whatever bbs is near by and get their mail from all over the world. There are 19.2 & I think 56kpbs backbones operating over satelittes & High Frequency. It works. It's intolerably slow. It's operating legally on ham frequencies which do not (legally) allow encryption. The main reason it's so slow is that the protocal was designed by these guys in Phoenix 10 years ago to use the radios popularly off the shelf then. Now, however, there are *FULL DUPLEX* radios available cheap ($400) off the shelf that use separate bands for tx & rx to make them cheap. (Most of these are 144 MHz <-> 440 MHz, Transmit on one, receive on the other, either way) I'm working on a new protocal which instead of using the current CSMA/CD, has local repeaters serving an area which do full duplex & pass a token around. Unfortunately, I'll probably only be able to increase bandwidth enough to bring the current 4-5 users per frequency up to 15 or 20. This is still nowhere near enough to do what you want, but it does still use off-the-shelf radios & modems you can build for $20 in parts & connect to your PC or Mac (Software will also be req'd- mods to current stuff will work) My roomate, tvr@cnmat.CNMAT.Berkeley.EDU (KD6PAG), is working on custome radios that raise that 2400 bps barrier to 19.2 or 38kpbs. I think that without my full duplex protocal, he'll still have to wait around dealing with transmit-receive turnover latency, but hey- if it works, wow! Anyone else with any cool ideas? +--------------------------- Ben Weiss ------------------------------+ ! Telephone: (510) 841-5709 voice Internet: LazyLion@Netcom.com ! ! (415) 325-9600 fax Ben_D._Weiss@bmug.org ! +-------------- Packet Radio: WB5QAL@N6EEG.#NOCAL.CA.US ---------------+