Since Ingrid and me moved to Kaiserslautern, we have problems getting online. Gladly, we found (by warwalking) some open WLAN nodes but that was awful. We felt like thieves (actually, we where) and my batteries where running out.

So we looked at the great url
wlan-in-kaiserslautern.de and found the lovely company Transkom that makes it possible: Internet at home by several WLAN antennas in town.

Sven Schwarz gave me the hint to look at free42.de to check out their stuff. GREAT, they also do it.

In germany - for all you internationals out there - is telecommunication in the hands of the megalonic monopolist. That means, that the last mile is in the guarded temple of high costs. Words like "flatrate" or "always on" are not known in the local language or long forgotten.

Example: I went to the local shop of T-COM (the telekom provider) and asked for a telephone. They have ISDN or Analogue phone lines. Ok, I wanted Internet on a ISDN flatrate. Or "Standleitung". They said they don't have a clue how to do it, I have to go to the business departement (in some other town not accessible to the carless).
Then, they sell ADSL there, which is a fast internet thing commonly used on analogue lines, with kinda flatrate fees. And I wanted a "fixed IP" - one guy searched 30 min in their internal knowledge system and didn't find anything about this mysterious "fixed ip".
BTW: why do I have the problem at all? Because they made all lines downtown of fiber glass - hurray - and are now to inflexible to get something fast into my flat. uhuh.

So much about telekom - in a country like this the rules of free market DRIVE us to buy these WLAN services.

I am curious what will happen next,
Will we make it and get Internet at home?
Will it be fixed ip?

we'll see....

hm, this is near my vision of cyberspace,.

add some GPS things and boing.

croquet

I forgot to post this link, at least I think
wwwdc4 Video

Spotlight is in the middle of it (thanks to Michael Zeltner)