Rivulet: A response to the last-mile problem

Rivulet is a proposed system for bringing to all American homes most of the benefits of broadband service without providing actual broadband service. We postulate that the last-mile problem (that of providing broadband service to every home) will not be solved in the foreseeable future, both for political and for technical reasons. However, hard disk size will continue to increase, and a large hard disk can hold information which makes the simulation of actual broadband more realistic. This information is kept on the Rivulet CD, which is distributed free. We describe a method of financing Rivulet by selling "stones," a stone being a collection of Web page designs that are specific to one organization and which are kept on the Rivulet CD. For a large organization, having their own stone means that the way their Web pages are seen by the user is faster and more graphically unique than the Web pages of ordinary organizations. This financing method further avoids dependence on governments, although governmental organizations can also buy their own stones.