I have been thinking about something. Some time ago I was reading about wireless mesh networks. I stumbled at something called batman-advanced that is essentially a self organizing wireless (and also handles wired connection). It routes packets efficiently and handles moving nodes. It is unfortunately (or may be not) layer 2, so basically it acts as a layer two router and needs some kind of integration with IP (which becomes very strange since all the devices in the mesh network are basically in the same subnet). (I haven't played with any of this, i have only read how this works and watched a few videos of people playing.)
So I am wandering is it theoretically possible to create a self organizing wireless (and wired, it should handle it automatically) network that spans big cities, countries or originally the whole planet? I see two challenges:
- It seems like the devices will need some kind of a routing table that includes all the other devices in the world. This seems very unscalable. Can the same be accomplished in some other way?
- There should be routing incentives. Can the current or future functionality of bitcoin, lightning, ecash or some other thing accomplish some kind of micropayment where each hop along the way is paid? Has something like this ever been implemented?