<https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/900mhz-mesh.html/> We may soon have city-spanning public mesh networks that can be used to send text messages and emails and lightly surf the Internet. They may even be useful for voice communication. My guess is that this may happen within the next two to five years, thanks to Amazon's decision <https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/amazon-sidewalk-is-a-new-long-range-wirele...> to put 900 MHz radios in some of its devices. The dream of having large standalone and Internet-connected public mesh networks has been alive for years. User-run, wifi-based mesh networks already exist in some areas where Internet service providers are not willing to provide internet service. Unfortunately, it turns out that stringing together a large number of wifi devices that have a range of only about 300 feet under ideal conditions does not work very well, even when high-gain antennas are used. So far, wifi has been the only economically viable option for public mesh networks, because wifi already exists. This means two things: 1) consumers can legally use wifi frequencies for short-range communication without any kind of license, and 2) consumers already have wifi devices in their homes. The problem is that a catch-22 exists for new mesh network technologies. We are very unlikely to have city-spanning mesh networks until we have inexpensive longer-range radio hardware, and we will probably not have inexpensive longer-range radio hardware until enough of us are already using it to make others want to join a mesh network. One good example is the goTenna. The company incorporated in 2013. A few years later, goTennas were in use all over the United States, and users appeared to be well on their way to creating city-wide mesh networks. Lately, however, the number of goTennas in operation <https://imeshyou.gotennamesh.com/> seems to have declined. Aside from the cost ($189 for two units) and the limited usefulness of the goTenna, it seems that not enough users were attracted to the networks to fill the coverage holes that would have had to be filled to make them really useful. What seems to be required as the basis of a mesh network in areas that already have Internet service is a longer-range wireless device that is already widely used for something else. Once the hardware exists in sufficient quantities to fill the potential coverage holes, the last hurdle is for programmers to write good mesh-networking software to string the hardware together. In other words, we can end the mesh networking catch-22 simply by giving consumers another reason to put longer-range, license-free wireless devices in their homes. Enter, Amazon's Sidewalk mesh network. This is a mesh network that Amazon is beginning to create using its Ring products and Amazon Echos. These devices were already selling well and providing services completely unrelated to mesh networking. So, Amazon decided to add a new feature. It began shipping these devices with low-power, built-in 900 MHz radios using the LoRa protocol <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa> for extending the range. Amazon was not initially using the 900 MHz radios as a selling point, because no Sidewalk mesh network existed. Apparently, this has been going on secretly for quite a while, because second generation Amazon Echos (which came out in October 2016) are compatible with Sidewalk. Not until recently has Amazon begun putting the 900 MHz radios to use. Amazon recently tested its Sidewalk network in Los Angeles <https://www.techradar.com/news/what-is-amazon-sidewalk-and-how-will-it-impac...>. Even though LoRa has a range of over 10 Km in rural areas, Amazon says its devices have a typical range of between 500 meters and a mile in urban areas, which is sixteen times the range of wifi. Of course, based on the past behavior of just about every other company that has ever brought a new product to market, we can expect that Amazon will do everything in its power to lock every non-Amazon-sanctioned device out of its network. IBM initially tried to prevent competing manufacturers from making products compatible with the IBM PC. Apple still does this in a number of ways with its products. So, the fact that Amazon will likely try to hog its network for itself and milk it for every penny it is worth should come as no surprise. One must also assume that Amazon will do its best to encrypt its network traffic and make its devices as hard to hack as possible. Despite Amazon's best efforts to keep its network for itself, it will likely fail. Even if it succeeds, history has shown time and time again that once an innovative product hits the market, copycat products immediately appear. So, one way or another, we may soon have cheap, open source, 900 MHz devices that are capable of being coordinated into city-spanning public mesh networks. Amazon says its Sidewalk network has a maximum transmission bandwidth of 80 Kb/s <https://www.slashgear.com/what-is-amazon-sidewalk-shared-iot-neighborhood-ne...>. That is faster than the fastest dial-up modems we had in the 1990's, so it is more than adequate for sending text messages and text-only email and surfing the Internet with a text-only browser like Lynx. Networks like Gopher and Gemini are even better targets. The text of this webpage can be downloaded using an 80 Kb/s connection in less than a fifth of a second. Sidewalk should also be fast enough for voice communication under good conditions. This means in two to five years we may be able to surf the internet or talk on our 900 MHz phones while walking down the sidewalk in nearly any city whose occupants own Amazon or other competing devices. We may also be able to do this very cheaply. Individuals who do not currently use the Internet enough to justify paying an ISP for a home Internet connection may be willing to pay a small monthly charge to use the new mesh networks. Once a new technology catches on, we eventually overcome the inevitable problems and find ways of making it better and faster. A 900 MHz network is likely to suffer from massive congestion soon after it first catches on, but just as we dealt with this with wifi, we can also deal with it with 900 MHz networks. All we need is enough of an incentive. Let's hope we are intelligent enough to sufficiently value the inexpensive, robust solution to the last mile problem that 900 MHz mesh networks should provide. Soon, the mobile phones for which we are now paying $40 US per month or more may work for practically no cost. Won't it be interesting to watch our widely-hated wireless telecommunication companies struggle to stay in business? 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