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jordanmthomas
August 21st, 2009, 11:25 PM
Say you have 2 computers connected to a LAN, but you aren't connected to the internet on either of them. You are still able to transfer files between the computers easily. Now, if you were connected by a wireless router, any computer within the range of the wireless signal will be able to transfer files between each other. Then you decide to use a signal booster to increase the range of your wireless network so that you'll be able to share files with everyone in your neighborhood.

This is where my idea comes in. Internet connections usually cost money to maintain, you have to spend more to get more bandwidth and plus they are slower than direct LAN/WLAN connections. What if you were to give out signal boosters to people all over the city, and go on for every square-mile until your LAN can be accessed by millions of people? Hell, with strong enough signal boosters it should be theoretically possible to spread it all across North America. Everyone would be able to share files/folders with everyone else, WITHOUT needing access to the internet. IP addresses can't even be used to track down because it's a network without internet access, your IP address would not be associated with any ISP.

Download speeds would be amazing, they would only be limited by the strength of the wireless signal, so in any urban area you'd never get speeds lower than 10MB/s. At first it would just be like a P2P program where you'd download files from other people's shared folders, but then websites would not cost anything to host because it's just a matter of putting your website in a shared folder and leaving your computer on.

****, everything about this sounds awesome. The only downside I could see of this is that being connected to the same network leaves everyone's computers wide open to hackers... who gives a ****, I want to try this. I wonder how much money it would cost to start out and get enough of a signal to cover a few blocks.

matthewbpt
August 21st, 2009, 11:32 PM
You my friend have just described what is called Wireless Mesh Network, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network , that the OLPC will use to give internet access to lots of children in schools in Africa. I think also a similar standard is the new WiMAX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimax . The idea is out there, it's still being developed but I think we will start seeing these networks appear in the nearish future.

damis648
August 21st, 2009, 11:36 PM
I like it. Hm... interesting.

tom66
August 21st, 2009, 11:42 PM
Interesting.

If it were designed appropriately using latest hardware (n-type) very fast speeds could be achieved.

I think the problem is getting wireless connections to extend far without costly antennae and transmission stations. Whilst distances of about 100 km have been achieved using normal hardware (laptop and station), this requires rare conditions: perfect weather, and a mountain.

However, light transmission is definitely a possibility. And it has been done: see Ronja Twister.

pwnst*r
August 21st, 2009, 11:43 PM
old. and done.

bkratz
August 22nd, 2009, 12:20 AM
Say you have 2 computers connected to a LAN, but you aren't connected to the internet on either of them. You are still able to transfer files between the computers easily. Now, if you were connected by a wireless router, any computer within the range of the wireless signal will be able to transfer files between each other. Then you decide to use a signal booster to increase the range of your wireless network so that you'll be able to share files with everyone in your neighborhood.

This is where my idea comes in. Internet connections usually cost money to maintain, you have to spend more to get more bandwidth and plus they are slower than direct LAN/WLAN connections. What if you were to give out signal boosters to people all over the city, and go on for every square-mile until your LAN can be accessed by millions of people? Hell, with strong enough signal boosters it should be theoretically possible to spread it all across North America. Everyone would be able to share files/folders with everyone else, WITHOUT needing access to the internet. IP addresses can't even be used to track down because it's a network without internet access, your IP address would not be associated with any ISP.

Download speeds would be amazing, they would only be limited by the strength of the wireless signal, so in any urban area you'd never get speeds lower than 10MB/s. At first it would just be like a P2P program where you'd download files from other people's shared folders, but then websites would not cost anything to host because it's just a matter of putting your website in a shared folder and leaving your computer on.

****, everything about this sounds awesome. The only downside I could see of this is that being connected to the same network leaves everyone's computers wide open to hackers... who gives a ****, I want to try this. I wonder how much money it would cost to start out and get enough of a signal to cover a few blocks.


Check out this link, it may be what the last poster is referring to.

http://seattlewireless.net/

hobo14
August 22nd, 2009, 01:47 AM
Well now you just need to make it happen. ;)
Make people aware of it, and give them a reason to join the mesh.
From your neighbourhood, to your city, to your state, to your country, to the rest of the world (oceans would make a world wide mesh difficult...?)

The hard part, of course, is making people aware of it, and want to join...

A good starting point might be to have big name web sites (very big name web sites, ie yahoo, google, wikipedia, etc!) start the mesh from their server locations, that might be enough incentive to get people close to them to mesh, and as soon as the mesh joins two or more of these sites together, the attractiveness of the mesh increases exponentially.

Google would be the best choice in my opinion, because their caches would give meshed people access to large chunks of the web.

See if you can talk Google into it ;)

fraser_m
August 22nd, 2009, 01:52 AM
Last time I checked, there's no wireless networking that works over the Atlantic. Are non-Americans to be cut off from this? Or are we having our own, different one?

solitaire
August 22nd, 2009, 02:03 AM
Just remember to check the local laws. Since you will be the "hub" and it being registered in your name. You might end up in legal trouble if people start using the "Mesh" for "not-so-legal" things!

Just make sure you got good filtering software installed and configured ^_^ (That's a big reason why this type of local Mesh has not flourished)....

hobo14
August 22nd, 2009, 02:28 AM
"Registered in your name" ??? Nothing would be registered, there would be no names...


Google has servers in Europe too. I'd be more worried about Australia (where I am).

If it ever actually happened (a big "if", but not impossible) and actually got large enough to be widely spread and used across the American continent, and the Eurasian continent, I'm sure governments would step in and assist with inter-continental connections.

wrtpeeps
August 22nd, 2009, 02:31 AM
Say you have 2 computers connected to a LAN, but you aren't connected to the internet on either of them. You are still able to transfer files between the computers easily. Now, if you were connected by a wireless router, any computer within the range of the wireless signal will be able to transfer files between each other. Then you decide to use a signal booster to increase the range of your wireless network so that you'll be able to share files with everyone in your neighborhood.

This is where my idea comes in. Internet connections usually cost money to maintain, you have to spend more to get more bandwidth and plus they are slower than direct LAN/WLAN connections. What if you were to give out signal boosters to people all over the city, and go on for every square-mile until your LAN can be accessed by millions of people? Hell, with strong enough signal boosters it should be theoretically possible to spread it all across North America. Everyone would be able to share files/folders with everyone else, WITHOUT needing access to the internet. IP addresses can't even be used to track down because it's a network without internet access, your IP address would not be associated with any ISP.

Download speeds would be amazing, they would only be limited by the strength of the wireless signal, so in any urban area you'd never get speeds lower than 10MB/s. At first it would just be like a P2P program where you'd download files from other people's shared folders, but then websites would not cost anything to host because it's just a matter of putting your website in a shared folder and leaving your computer on.

****, everything about this sounds awesome. The only downside I could see of this is that being connected to the same network leaves everyone's computers wide open to hackers... who gives a ****, I want to try this. I wonder how much money it would cost to start out and get enough of a signal to cover a few blocks.

Someone suggested something like this before. And he was rightly shot down for it because the idea simply wont work.

Warpnow
August 22nd, 2009, 02:33 AM
You'd need more advanced hardware technology than a router has. There's a reason there are server warehouses...

And what happens to site XYZ when the owner shuts down his computer?

KinKiac
August 22nd, 2009, 03:16 AM
I think this is a cool idea but in the end it is already being done on a large scale, more or less. Its called wireless internet, lol. Once you start getting beyond the whole simple shared folders thing you have to start finding ways to locate specific sites and/or computers, then you need some sort of address system (ie IPV4).

Basically what you are talking about is the same thing that ISP's do. They invest the money in the infrastructure(instead of each individual doing it) and then charge you to access it. If anything like this ever got off the ground, businesses like IPS would somehow get involved and try to make money off of it(as would everyone else) and then you're left with something not much different than the existing internet.

Personally, if you are looking for cheaper internet I think a better idea would be to get your local municipality to invest in their own fibre infrastructure for your city. Once the city has its own cables laid that anyone in the city can access, then they auction off the internet service to the lowest bidder and manage access fee's just like a local utility which is exactly what the internet would become(and in my opinion should be). The result would be much more competition for IPS's not to mention a significant drop in costs to the consumers and relative drop in revenue for ISP's.

I think there was a place in Minnesota that was trying to build their own infrastructure. The ISP's in the area were taking it to court to try to stop it, which is understandable from a business perspective as they stood to lose millions if not more. From a community perspective though, it is probably one of the best things you could do for yourselves.

hobo14
August 22nd, 2009, 03:17 AM
Thoughts:

Nodes in closer physical proximity to valuable resoucres (eg google servers) would experience higher traffic than nodes not close to anything.

Users could set up their mesh node with data that al least gives some idea of their physical location (like phone country/area codes do) to assist with very long didtance mesh pathfinding. A few erroneous or missing codes wouldn't matter.
Ideally mesh node hardware would be able to obtain it's own GPS coords on initialisation.

Mesh node should be able to continue operating even if the owners computer is turned off. Difficult before mesh-specific hardware becomes popular? -(because mesh would rely on software/hardware combination?)

Google might not want to seed meshes, because they'd have to retool their software?

A possible better mesh seeder: Universities - open to new ideas/student projects, have large numbers of people(students) who want to connect to them, many student have none or dialup internet only, potential users all live in same city as uni, uni could even use the mesh to allow students to use their uni internet account and act as a mesh portal to the web (making the early mesh more attractive), many universities around the world which makes it quite likely that their individual meshes would merge.

jeffathehutt
August 22nd, 2009, 03:36 AM
How would these computers communicate with each other? Someone would have to design a new decentralized method of communication and identification. Either that, or use routers / bridges / gateways etc. Which means someone would have to control (and own) that hardware... Which means they would charge lots of money for everyone to use it...

It's a good idea in theory, but in the end it would be just another internet run and controlled by large corporations.

hobo14
August 22nd, 2009, 03:45 AM
It's not a new idea, but it's a good one, and very interesting...
(But the title of this thread is very bad, IMHO)



Someone suggested something like this before. And he was rightly shot down for it because the idea simply wont work.
Could you offer us some more insight ito why it won't work?




You'd need more advanced hardware technology than a router has. There's a reason there are server warehouses...

And what happens to site XYZ when the owner shuts down his computer?
Yes, you'd need different pathfinding algorithms, but not much better routing hardware than routers currently have, if any at all.
Server farms (basically) hold data, ie websites. (apologies to anyone upset by this oversimplification). They would perform exactly the same function on the mesh.

If the owner of XYZ shuts down his computer his mesh site would be unreachable. Exactly the same as a web site.




I think this is a cool idea but in the end it is already being done on a large scale, more or less. Its called wireless internet, lol. Once you start getting beyond the whole simple shared folders thing you have to start finding ways to locate specific sites and/or computers, then you need some sort of address system (ie IPV4).

Basically what you are talking about is the same thing that ISP's do. They invest the money in the infrastructure(instead of each individual doing it) and then charge you to access it. If anything like this ever got off the ground, businesses like IPS would somehow get involved and try to make money off of it(as would everyone else) and then you're left with something not much different than the existing internet.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but you don't really understand what you are talking about, do you?
This is not being done.
"Wireless Internet" is just replacing an ethernet cable with a pair of antennae (or perhaps you are talking about mobile internet, where your mobile(cell) phone company acts as your ISP). This is NOT what we are talking about.
DNS/IPV4/etc is just one way of getting messages from their source to intended target. There are infinite other possibilities.
Think of the outer edges of the internet as many tree structures: you plug several computers into your modem, many people like you have their modems "plugged in" to their ISPs, several ISPs are plugged into a telco, who has the infrastructure to connect to other telcos.
How would ISPs get involved? Even if they could, how would that make the mesh like the web? We are talking about structure here.

hobo14
August 22nd, 2009, 03:50 AM
How would these computers communicate with each other? Someone would have to design a new decentralized method of communication and identification.
...

Algorithms like this already exist, and have existed for a very long time.
If a large mesh network never exists, it will not be because of this.

Frak
August 22nd, 2009, 03:56 AM
"Registered in your name" ??? Nothing would be registered, there would be no names...


Google has servers in Europe too. I'd be more worried about Australia (where I am).

If it ever actually happened (a big "if", but not impossible) and actually got large enough to be widely spread and used across the American continent, and the Eurasian continent, I'm sure governments would step in and assist with inter-continental connections.
Your connection is registered in your name. I go through an ISP, so my name follows my current IP.

I modified my router to display a page the first time somebody access it containing a page that reads "You accept legal repercussions in the event of illegal conduct...your hardware ID's have been recorded." Worked so far. Got one of my neighbors arrested that way, in fact.

EDIT
To the person who was talking about a method of finding clients: This is how Ethernet works today. Switches can store information about the clients connected to it, but if going through hubs, like most networks do, data is just broadcast to everybody until the corresponding client accepts the connection. Much of the same method can be directly applied to WiMesh networks.

hobo14
August 22nd, 2009, 04:15 AM
Your [internet] connection is registered in your name. I go through an ISP, so my name follows my current IP.
You're missing the point. No-one is suggesting you connect to the mesh to share your internet connection.
The mesh would be an alternative to the net, stand alone (although it's quite possible that large instututions may decide to be mesh portals to the web, especially while the web was much larger than the mesh).
So no names.


I modified my router to display a page the first time somebody access it containing a page that reads "You accept legal repercussions in the event of illegal conduct...your hardware ID's have been recorded." Worked so far. Got one of my neighbors arrested that way, in fact.
...
Wouldn't it have been easier, and nicer, to just not allow anyone else access to your router?

Frak
August 22nd, 2009, 04:24 AM
Wouldn't it have been easier, and nicer, to just not allow anyone else access to your router?

I happen to live in a poor neighborhood where not everybody has the benefit of internet access. I periodically give out Netbooks to kids around here so they can do their schoolwork a bit easier. It's kinda my way of giving back to the community. Though, adults to sometimes like to get onto the network and bypass the content filtering, and I post strict warnings about doing so.

hobo14
August 22nd, 2009, 02:49 PM
Looks like we are all a bit behind the eight ball...
Mesh networks are apparently popping up in more and more places, and growing.

The military use them: http://www.truemeshnetworks.com/index.php/products/
An OLD guide on how to turn wireless laptops into a mesh: http://wireless.ictp.it/groups/wireless/weblog/0c7ff/Mesh_Networking_.html and the software for it http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mobilemesh/
This company is just one of many that makes small, cheap IEEE 802.11 mesh routers: http://meraki.com/products_services/
Here's a graphic of a mesh with thousandsof nodes operating in Greece: http://wind.awmn.net/?page=nodes

BackwardsDown
August 22nd, 2009, 03:53 PM
So let's say this system of yours exists. And I want to download a file from a friend that is 100km far away. My packets have to pass how many computers/boosters/routers?

Exactly, it will be slow as hell.

What you are describing is exactly what the internet is! Many computers connected in a grid. Except the internet has backbones and very very big rootservers that take care that everyting gets routed in the fastest way.

Frak
August 22nd, 2009, 04:07 PM
Ah the internet:

One of the largest most technically advanced systems on the planet. Miniature clusters distributing data everywhere, but managed on a system that most resembles what was used back in the 80's and early 90's. (Token Ring network with no elections, but we refer to the Fibre Optic one as the SONET network.)

JillSwift
August 22nd, 2009, 04:28 PM
Ah the internet:

One of the largest most technically advanced systems on the planet. Miniature clusters distributing data everywhere, but managed on a system that most resembles what was used back in the 80's and early 90's. (Token Ring network with no elections, but we refer to the Fibre Optic one as the SONET network.)
Ahhhh Token Ring.

We used that in the computer lab at the University. One day someone undid a coax connector and the token fell out. We couldn't use the network until we fount it.:)

Frak
August 22nd, 2009, 04:37 PM
Ahhhh Token Ring.

We used that in the computer lab at the University. One day someone undid a coax connector and the token fell out. We couldn't use the network until we fount it.:)
We had a Token ring of token rings. Local computer groups could send the token accross the local group, but had to go around the entire loop to reach another small group, and then travel around that network to the computer.

Was it slow, AB-SO-LUTE-LY

One day we had a short in one of the coaxial lines. We went through about 100 lines to find the one that was shorted. It was a nightmare.

koenn
August 22nd, 2009, 08:35 PM
Ahhhh Token Ring.

We used that in the computer lab at the University. One day someone undid a coax connector and the token fell out. We couldn't use the network until we fount it.:)
That's why you always have to have 2 rings ...

koenn
August 22nd, 2009, 08:51 PM
Algorithms like this already exist, and have existed for a very long time.
If a large mesh network never exists, it will not be because of this.
Just 'boosting your signal' isn't enough. At some point, someone is going to put some organization and coordination into it, such as agreeing on address space, name space, etc. Some people will need to be running some sort of infrastructure, routers most likely, maybe name servers, or the functional equivalent of search engines.

In the end you'd probably just be reinventing the internet but without the benefit of 30 years of experience and accumulated knowledge.

hobo14
August 23rd, 2009, 05:53 AM
So let's say this system of yours exists. And I want to download a file from a friend that is 100km far away. My packets have to pass how many computers/boosters/routers?

Exactly, it will be slow as hell.

What you are describing is exactly what the internet is! Many computers connected in a grid. Except the internet has backbones and very very big rootservers that take care that everyting gets routed in the fastest way.

Sure, no-one wants to use a very large mesh that only has 100m hops, but WiMax can extend hops to 50km, which would bring routng overhead to a bit over 50% of total latency (compared to about 5% on the internet, so about half speed), and hardware will only get better.

"What you are descrbing is exactly what the internet is!...Except..."
Except that it's not what the internet is.
The mesh doesn't have to have infrastructure besides the hardware of it's users/nodes.


At some point, someone is going to put some organization and coordination into it, such as agreeing on address space, name space, etc. Some people will need to be running some sort of infrastructure, routers most likely, maybe name servers, or the functional equivalent of search engines.
No they won't.
Have you ever looked at mesh routing protocols? I suggest you do.

t0p
August 23rd, 2009, 09:51 AM
Your connection is registered in your name. I go through an ISP, so my name follows my current IP.

I modified my router to display a page the first time somebody access it containing a page that reads "You accept legal repercussions in the event of illegal conduct...your hardware ID's have been recorded." Worked so far. Got one of my neighbors arrested that way, in fact.


Yes, you can catch idiots that way. But what if I change my mac every time I connect?

BackwardsDown
August 23rd, 2009, 11:43 AM
Sure, no-one wants to use a very large mesh that only has 100m hops, but WiMax can extend hops to 50km, which would bring routng overhead to a bit over 50% of total latency (compared to about 5% on the internet, so about half speed), and hardware will only get better.
Do you have a source for those numbers?


No they won't.
Have you ever looked at mesh routing protocols? I suggest you do.
I think I have a good understanding what mesh routing protocols do. Sometimes I'm running my own freenet node, maybe you have heard of it (freenetproject.org). They are making an internet that can't be cencored and is completely anonymous. Its working rather well but its still very slow.

Its running on the same infrastructure as the normal "internet" except every computer is linked to ~20 other peers/friends and every document you put on freenet gets routed trough the whole network.

But I can't seem to see why hops of 50km will get my data faster than fiber.

Frak
August 23rd, 2009, 07:11 PM
Yes, you can catch idiots that way. But what if I change my mac every time I connect?
MAC Addresses are one way to catch somebody; using patterns is another. My router stores a session cookie on the client computer everytime someone visits a website. If cookies are disabled, they are greeted by a page saying "Cookies must be enabled beyond this point for access". I keep a record of all sites visited by clients and record MAC addresses for each site visited. Further, I can capture the user-agent everytime someone accesses the router.

The only thing I haven't done so far is create an ActiveX control that just blatantly tells me everything about them.

Eviltechie
August 23rd, 2009, 09:20 PM
What about security. One advantage of the current internet is the only people that can spy on us are the ones with access to the infrastructure. The only way I can spy on you is if I get in-between your network. Now that everybody is "in-between", spying for passwords and such just got 1000 times eaiser.

aktiwers
August 23rd, 2009, 09:22 PM
This sounds a lot like the http://www.wippies.com/ idea.. they gave free wireless routers to everyone,
and it would allow other people (who has wippies) to login in. When everyone got it, there will be free internet everywhere.. but it never happend :(

Frak
August 23rd, 2009, 09:26 PM
This sounds a lot like the http://www.wippies.com/ idea.. they gave free wireless routers to everyone,
and it would allow other people (who has wippies) to login in. When everyone got it, there will be free internet everywhere.. but it never happend :(
Nobody ever talks about LaFonera anymore. I took mine and turned it into a third party WiFi connection (for my laptops that didn't have supported wireless back in 2005/2006).

hobo14
August 24th, 2009, 06:20 AM
Do you have a source for those numbers?
The speed of light, assumed the internet averages 800km between routers/switches, assumed high performance routers that add 200 microseconds processing time to latency.


I think I have a good understanding what mesh routing protocols do. Sometimes I'm running my own freenet node, maybe you have heard of it (freenetproject.org). They are making an internet that can't be cencored and is completely anonymous. Its working rather well but its still very slow.
No, I don't think you do.
Read up on OLSR, BATMAN, AODV, and HSLS for a start.


...
But I can't seem to see why hops of 50km will get my data faster than fiber.
?? Who said that? I said it would be half speed, ie twice as slow....
Obviously 50km hops could never be as fast as a network with 800km hops, although with very high performance routers the difference could one day potentially be negligible.

KinKiac
August 29th, 2009, 04:17 AM
I'm not trying to be rude here, but you don't really understand what you are talking about, do you?

I may not be a network tech, my knowledge of large scale network protocols is very very lacking yes, but i dont think what I was saying is entirely incorrect. Im not a total noob, but im not a network engineer either.


This is not being done.
"Wireless Internet" is just replacing an ethernet cable with a pair of antennae (or perhaps you are talking about mobile internet, where your mobile(cell) phone company acts as your ISP).
This is more or less what i was talking about. Cell phone companies in the US and Canada are spending billions right now to expand their wireless networks, not just for cell phones, but for PC's and laptops too. The many cell towers create a giant mesh( or at least i think if I understand correctly, i dont know anything about mesh networking as has been described by others, just what ive read here) and are moving towards creating adhoc networks within the network between specific users. i know this is not EXACTLY what is being talked about here, but it seems very similar and not just to me but to other posters here as well.


This is NOT what we are talking about.
DNS/IPV4/etc is just one way of getting messages from their source to intended target. There are infinite other possibilities.
Think of the outer edges of the internet as many tree structures: you plug several computers into your modem, many people like you have their modems "plugged in" to their ISPs, several ISPs are plugged into a telco, who has the infrastructure to connect to other telcos.
How would ISPs get involved? Even if they could, how would that make the mesh like the web? We are talking about structure here.

Im not dumb, I know how a network is setup, I may not be a network engineer but i have a good grasp on network structure, at least on a small scale.

I think this would make the mesh like the web in that it is a whole bunch of PC's connected to each other. Thats what the web is, is it not? As for telco's getting involved, they would start offering access points to the mesh, then offer advertising space on the access points, they could then charge for using their access point and since they can afford much more expensive and presumably faster equipment, they could then charge for the speed that their equipment provides. yes, i may be talking out my @#$ somewhat, but my point was simply that if something like this ever got off the ground, people and companies would find a way to capitalize on it and make money off it. It just seems too much like a smaller, slower version of the internet, only not controlled by large corporations, at least at first. However, if there is a way for a large company to profit off it, they will. If they can take control in any way, they will. Thats all I meant.

hobo14
August 29th, 2009, 08:19 AM
I may not be a network tech, my knowledge of large scale network protocols is very very lacking yes, but i dont think what I was saying is entirely incorrect. Im not a total noob, but im not a network engineer either.

This is more or less what i was talking about. Cell phone companies in the US and Canada are spending billions right now to expand their wireless networks, not just for cell phones, but for PC's and laptops too. The many cell towers create a giant mesh( or at least i think if I understand correctly, i dont know anything about mesh networking as has been described by others, just what ive read here) and are moving towards creating adhoc networks within the network between specific users. i know this is not EXACTLY what is being talked about here, but it seems very similar and not just to me but to other posters here as well.


Im not dumb, I know how a network is setup, I may not be a network engineer but i have a good grasp on network structure, at least on a small scale.

I think this would make the mesh like the web in that it is a whole bunch of PC's connected to each other. Thats what the web is, is it not? As for telco's getting involved, they would start offering access points to the mesh, then offer advertising space on the access points, they could then charge for using their access point and since they can afford much more expensive and presumably faster equipment, they could then charge for the speed that their equipment provides. yes, i may be talking out my @#$ somewhat, but my point was simply that if something like this ever got off the ground, people and companies would find a way to capitalize on it and make money off it. It just seems too much like a smaller, slower version of the internet, only not controlled by large corporations, at least at first. However, if there is a way for a large company to profit off it, they will. If they can take control in any way, they will. Thats all I meant.

I doubt mobile/cell tower networks use mesh topology (although they might), and even if they did, it still wouldn't be what we are talking about.
We are talking about mesh networks composed of users with their own hardware.

There is no room there for telcos to get involved, because anyone could connect with a few dollars worth of hardware.

The highlighted sentence seems to be the crux of your difficulty in understanding. A bunch of PC's connected to each other is a network, but could be a mesh or one of many other network topologies.

The web is not the internet, or a network.