Newsgroups: comp.society.development
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!hobbit.gandalf.ca!alayne
From: alayne@hobbit.gandalf.ca (Alayne McGregor)
Subject: Re: Summary: Who is on the net?
Message-ID: <1991May31.164812.4629@hobbit.gandalf.ca>
Organization: Gandalf Data Ltd., Nepean, Ontario
References: <1991May28.183943.16259@convex.com> <1991May28.204751.11309@news.larc.nasa.gov> <MAS.91May29090831@arcsun.arc.ab.ca>
Date: Fri, 31 May 1991 16:48:12 GMT
Lines: 25

In article <MAS.91May29090831@arcsun.arc.ab.ca> mas@arcsun.arc.ab.ca (Marc Schroeder) writes:
>
>On the subject of possibly accessing the net with packet radio:
>
>I am not a ham, but I delved into it at one point out of interest. I was
>particularly fascinated by packet radio. However, at the time it seemed to
>me that speeds were too slow to serve any practical purpose - especially
>to access the internet.
>
>This all would have been back in the 80's, when most of the hams I knew
>were operating at ~1200 baud.. and then there was some propagation delay
>to be dealt with, as I recall.
>
>My question is this: Has packet radio progressed enough in the last few
>years to serve as a _practical_ communications medium? Could it realistically
>compete with more standard methods?

The Packet Working Group of the Ottawa Amateur Radio Society is selling 56K baud
packet radio modems, which run TCP/IP over AX.25. Considerably faster than 1200 baud.

(I'm not an amateur radio operator nor a member of the group, so please don't
ask technical questions. I can refer you to members if you're interested.)

Alayne McGregor
alayne@gandalf.ca
