Ricochet Wireless Network Finally Kaput
Glenn Fleishman is reporting that Ricochet, one of the first wireless data service available in the United States, has finally been taken offline. Ricochet worked by hanging radio pods from light poles which passed signals from unit to unit, not unlike a Wi-Fi mesh network. It was an amazing service when it launched a decade ago, but it never quite got real traction.
When I was a kid—I guess I can say that, right? I was 20—there was nothing more that I wanted than to live in a town with Ricochet. To get on to the internet without using wires? So futuristic!
On a related note, Crunchgear is reporting that AirCell was approved to implement Wi-Fi-based internet service in airlines today, so internet in airplanes should be coming pretty soon.
Ricochet, at Long Last, Dead [WiFiNetNews.com via Techdirt]
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That is sad. I was an early adopter of Ricochete for a client of mine who had a team of Sales guys that needed to get thier orders in every day. it was cool but when they originally went belly up and contracted back to Denver they never really recovered.
There is even one of their stations still attached to the streetlight outside my house.
When I was a kid (around 21, if that counts) I had ricochet. It was awesome. I had a velcro strip on the back of my powerbook and stuck that adapter to it. It rocked.
Wow, I had both the original Ricochet and then the later "Crickochet" (because it was much smaller) and ran it on my Compaq Aero as well as my Apple Mac Duo 230. It connected via serial cable. I lived and worked in Washington, but also was able to spend a lovely Summer in the cafes of Seattle, Washington, as well, as well as San Francisco, because they were two other hot zones. This is back in 1996 and 1997. Maybe it was earlier, I forget. The devices were powerful, fast -- was it 89k or so? -- at least faster that 28.8-56k, anyway. And very very few people would stop to see what I was up to even though having someone web-browsing online in the mid-90s wasn't that common. Wow, I am a serious geek. It always makes me wonder how come Wi-Max and other wireless solutions are so rare when Ricochet could do this back in 1996.
What you mean, internet for airlines? I had a really nice wi-fi signal on a flight Korea - Paris 2 years ago ... whooping 30USD ... but heck .. fun to chat with pals while the flight info tells you you are crossing the Ural mountains :)
And Lufthansa had this for a while, and I loved it.
But please, allow me to kill with my bare hands the first loudmouth git who makes a call on his mobile from the airplane seat next to me on a transatlantic flight.
I'd do it as a public service.
coop
I still have some ricochet modems, pulled from the scrap heap when people finally cleared them out of desk drawers.
You can still do some interesting stuff with them. They can accept standard modem AT strings and can call each other directly, no base station needed. It's like a wireless null modem cable.