Gossip

Satellite won't set alight the Thames

Our Sniffer made it all the way to Harrogate for the seminal Digital Dales "hardcore wireless" networking seminar. It was going to be a showcase of how to do rural broadband; a mesh of LocustWorld inter-connected wireless networks, and a wireless broadband feed from Aramiska.

So you can understand the packet Sniffer's excitement when he started up his PC in the beautiful Harlow Carr Gardens, and looked for an Internet connection.

The packets flowed all right; but they didn't come from the Internet. The server was there; DHCP lease was fine, and everything should have been working.

Sniffer traced the IP link back to the Aramiska van, where a LocustWorld Mesh box was connected to the downlink. It was switched off. "Why is our Mesh machine dead?" asked the LocustWorld team, in a calm and reasonable scream.

"Oh, was that your kit? I had to shut the door of the van, and the power cable was blocking the door, so I unplugged it," said the Aramiska "engineer."

It wasn't the only problem. When delegates first tried to link to the satellite, they had a similar problem - a nice link to LocustWorld, but the packets, when examined, showed that the LocustWorld network was unable to find a DNS. The Hunky Mouse approached a couple of knowledgeable-looking nerds.

"Apparently, the satellite system is on its way," he was assured. "It's stuck in traffic on the M66."

Aramiska was, er, um, missing. Clearly, it is possible to take the "mobile" concept too far ...