I hate to sound like a paranoid delusional, but this is a time when having even a basic amateur radio license seems like a really great idea. It's not impossible to for the government to shut down the airwaves, but it is a lot harder to do it on a broad scale. Communication is essential to a free society, and it's startling to me that our government wants the same ability. It seems so entirely counter to our core principles as a nation.
But I fear that the actual end result will be an Egypt ruled by one of the Muslim extremist groups that operate there and which are far more organized and poised to take advantage of a power vacuum.
It's less clear than you think. It didn't work in Iran and it might not work here. The arrogance in social media will have to be reconciled with failed revolutions.
you only need a license to broadcast legally, if you're trying to over-throw a government, it would seem unlikely that you'd be too worried about doing it legally.
HAM radio is interesting, because it is the most decentralized form of communications. Cell phones are internet and land lines are all routed through some corporation or government entity. HAM radio relies only on RF propagation. Repeaters are another matter, they can be knocked out, but a decent HF tx will get you a good distance.
The problem is, running something like this would be
a) illegal due to frequency problems and
b) if we leave aside the legal implications, you might be killing valid emergency service calls.
That said I think it's excellent for the direction of future telco developments.
Egypt did shut-down mobile networks, right? So you'd be enabling emergency calls! And re illegal: if you start burning cars in the streets then I'd argue that running an 'illegal' base-station is one of your minor problems...
I think someone should start a Kickstarter site where weatherized mobile base stations are developed from off the shelf parts, such that they can be quickly assembled, packaged, and shipped to neighboring countries where there is a totalitarian Internet blackout, so they can be smuggled across the border.
Even IM, SMS, and small still images are a threat to such regimes, especially in times like this.
Good idea, sadly OpenBTS being 1/10 the cost of existing infrastructure, still makes it (ballpark figure) $5k to operate something like the BurningMan 1 BTS network (so cheap in the telco world! Ohh, I'm not considering the power system in that figure).
Sure, GSM is ubiquitous, but WiFi is getting there and more commoditized. (Completely O.T. but I find the lack of people hacking their HP printers with WiFi in, quite a lack!)
We get closer and closer to a William Gibson-esque world all the time.
Good idea, sadly OpenBTS being 1/10 the cost of existing infrastructure, still makes it (ballpark figure) $5k to operate something like the BurningMan 1 BTS network
This is well within the budget for a well publicized Kickstarter campaign. Just a dozen of those in the capital city for 1 week would be extremely valuable.
But yes, I've been considering getting one on and off for 12 years. Sadly data over amateur radio doesn't appear to have progressed much in that time. Still, as voice comms it's pretty solid! Some countries UHF radio is still very popular (e.g. Australia).
It depends what you mean about progress. Digital communications evolved and it's nice to have data capability that can span the globe with a 100W radio (PSK shortwave). The bandwidth is not there, unless you go up in frequency, but then the range is limited without repeaters. I ran a VHF AX.25 node for a long time, using a 486 linux machine and soundcard as modem. With a good antenna and location I had people connecting from 50km or more and with my internet connectivity some even used tcp/ip. I could also connect to other nodes, using my peers as repeaters. My point is although the communication is slow, it's very easy to get something going with cheap radios (mine was a used modified radio from commercial frequencies), homebuilt antennas , computers that nobody wants anymore and of course open source.
I was looking at building a AX.25 node 10 years ago, with a 15km range on a basic amateur license, with maybe 28kbps. Almost all integrated into a radio with a digital output that cost the same as a PC.
That's what I mean about lack of progress... not much advanced today - it's a bit cheaper and easier, with better range, but no better bandwidth. If the frequencies & range are a fundamental issue, OK. When I was reading 10 years ago there was a strong dis-interest in data from my local groups, who thought it was ruining their voice comms. Still today I find the local amateur radio groups have little interest in packet radio beyond maybe running a webcam over AX.25. The interested HAMs are running community WiFi projects.
I tend to be a paranoia cynic (after all, paranoia is a baseless suspicion of others' motives) but our own politicians are up to unsavory shenanigans of their own in this space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_kill_switch
But is it trivial to jam most ham frequencies across the 3.8 Million Sq. Miles of the U.S.? Or Europe (Same Size)? Or even just Germany (135,000 sq. miles)?
Edit: For comparison Egypt is about 387,000 sq miles.
I realize that you would not have to cover the entire country to be effective, but probably at least 90% of residential areas. Especially in Europe where the radio operators only need to reach over a nearby border.
