Editing Snow Crash (section)

===Metaverse===
{{see also|Metaverse}}
Stephenson's "Metaverse" appears to its users as an [[urban area|urban]] environment, developed along a single hundred-meter-wide road, the Street, that runs around the entire 65,536&nbsp;km (2<sup>16</sup>&nbsp;km) circumference of a featureless, black, perfectly spherical [[planet]]. The virtual [[real estate]] is owned by the Global Multimedia Protocol Group, a fictional part of the real life [[Association for Computing Machinery]], and is available to be bought and buildings developed thereupon.<ref name="snow-crash" />{{rp|p=24}} Access to the metaverse is through L. Bob Rife's global [[Fiber-optic communication|fiber-optic network]], which grew from a collection of small [[cable television]] franchises into a global telecommunications monopoly and superseded the [[Plain old telephone service|traditional telephone system]].<ref name="snow-crash" />{{rp|p=115}}

Users of the Metaverse gain access to it through personal terminals that project a high-quality virtual reality display onto goggles worn by the user,<ref name="snow-crash" />{{rp|p=23}} or from low-quality public terminals in booths (with the penalty of presenting a grainy [[black-and-white]] appearance).<ref name="snow-crash" />{{rp|p=41}} Stephenson also describes a [[subculture]] of people choosing to remain continuously connected to the Metaverse by wearing portable terminals, goggles and other equipment; they are nicknamed "[[gargoyle]]s" due to their grotesque appearance.<ref name="snow-crash" />{{rp|p=123}} The users of the Metaverse experience it from a [[First person (video games)|first-person perspective]].

Within the Metaverse, individual users appear as avatars of any form, with the sole restriction of height, "to prevent people from walking around a mile high".<ref name="snow-crash" />{{rp|p=41}} Transport within the Metaverse is limited to analogs of reality by foot or vehicle, such as the [[monorail]] that runs the entire length of the Street, stopping at [[256 (number)|256]] ''Express Ports'', located evenly at 256&nbsp;km intervals, and ''Local Ports'', one kilometer apart.<ref name="snow-crash" />{{rp|p=37}}