@Baggywrinkle - I'm glad I'm not the only one who knows of these...
The only thing on Eye's post I have no actual experience of (yet) is "Satellite communications and hardware"
We still have some time to work out the options... Count me in, I can re-build the whole internet if necessary
I have been working on a comm server method/code for my website, but thinking about it I could easily add a fidonet style distribution and mirror this site in freenet etc. - even a bittorret patchfile site update distribution is an option, there are loads of things we can do - I have a lot of code already written, it would be a matter of testing and creating a network of access points for dial-ups in different countries. I had some communication with the admin of this site before Christmas, but I'm waiting to hear back from them - there are cost/trust issues that need to be resolved before anything solid can be created, but then again - mirroring this site and adding it as a resource to a separate network maybe the best option as a centrally managed resource is basically a weakness...