Quote:I admit I'm a little puzzled as to why folks seem to think that usefully fast/high-bandwidth FTL radio is a bad thing. I mean, if the purpose is to evoke Age Of Sail travel, then the optimal thing would be to do away with FTL coms altogether. Otherwise we might as well make FTL radio as useful as any of the other various & sundry methods of communication.
need help developing a rule/formula that will let bandwidth drop as distance increases, without killer levels of latency. At 8 times lightspeed, Pluto is 40 minutes - that's an hour and twenty minute ping time, which is cool, but need a simple rule to scale that out, since 8x light puts Mars at a 3 second ping and Hermes at a mere 6 second ping time - that's way too low!
So, a counterproposal:
FTL Radio/Wavecom/Wavenet
In open space, radio signals travel at (obviously) the speed of light. Since space is big, this causes problems involving communications lag. A number of fen inventors have developed their own FTL radio systems. Each one is a bit different, but they all operate on the same principles as FTL travel.
The "standard" FTL radio used in Fenspace has an estimated signal speed of 10000.0c, bridging the gap from Earth to Pluto in just over a second (but calling the nearest star is a six hour round trip for one signal. Remember, space is big). As befits the patchwork that is the realspace radio network, the FTL system's total available bandwidth and general reliability depend on what device was handwaved to create the FTL transponder in the first place.
(insert: long rant that matches realspace description, etc.)
The system that's achieved the greatest penetration is the Interwave. Interwave transmitters are large and power hungry, but they provide enough bandwidth to act as the backbone for FanNet. Interwave nodes exist at:
Sydney, .au (the main connect point to the mundane Intertubes)
Wellington, .nz (secondary mundane net connect point)
Stellvia, .l5
Kandor City, .luna
Deimos, .mars
Utopia Planitia, .mars
Flying Island, .fs
Crystal Tokyo, .venus
Callisto, .jupiter
Mimas, .saturn
Starbase 2, .alcen---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
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