HoloNet Nodes

[2046]

Just an interesting note from the TCW novelization:

Ch. 3: A "tech droid and his human associate" are ''slicers'', hackers for hire, and ascertain that the Huttlet has been taken to Teth via correlating data for ships leaving Tatooine at the appropriate time, including "Air-traffic-control records", "Comlink-relay records. Medical-data-bank accesses." As the human Gaib notes, "We ... acquired the outgoing comlink records on all the main HoloNet nodes within a day's flight time. What pinned it down was checking access requests to the Galactic All-Species Self-Help Database [...] We hacked the access logs on that, too. It's a Republic-health resource. Tee-Kay examined all the requests for information on Hutt health and illnesses." TK-O notes, "Someone on a ship outbound from Tatooine accessed the GASSH Database to download information on Hutt childhood illnesses, and that ship landed on Teth."

Comlinks can be used for interstellar communications via HoloNet nodes. Given that there are an unspecified number of them within a day's flight time of Tatooine, the galaxy must be littered with them.

Unclear is how they are set up. In computer networking parlance, "node" just equals "thing on the network", for all intents and purposes. But in telecommunications, "node" usually implies a routing or switching point. Certainly the reference to "comlink-relay records" suggests something more like a modern mobile phone network of towers and somewhat centralized switching points. It does not follow that there would be one node per populated system and they are set up in a star topology, similar to multiple devices connected to a modern-day wireless router. More likely is that they are set up in a network, with major switches and hubs connected to by minor outlying nodes such as the node or nodes near Tatooine.

Also unspecified is the physical location and other details of these nodes. Is there a HoloNet node somewhere in Mos Eisley, or are they in orbit? What's the range for communicating with a node? These would make for very interesting details.

Also, I seem to recall someone suggesting that all communications in Star Wars are direct, with none of those pesky relay stations. Oops.