I was thinking of teleportation more as a form of mental ability (or possibly an implant? Yay for cyborgs), not as much like the startreky idea of teleporters, so that would be a no to 2. But that implies an inherent autonomy with the ability which could lead to problems without proper regulation. Such as two people trying to teleport to the same spot at once. Also, how to make sure it is only used for personal use, and not for business use (since that might be a competition barrier)

And as for 1, ideally it would require no more energy than is suppliable from the human body. Having to have an attached battery pack would be weird. I guess making sure you’re well-fed before you teleport would be a good idea.

What would happen to the mainlines after they’re obsolete?

When it comes down to it, though, really I just wish I could teleport, and it probably would be too much of a hassle if anyone else could as well…

1) what are the power input levels required?

2) does teleportation require a paired set of teleporters, one at each end?

My usual assumptions are that power inputs are very large and scale slower-than-linear to distance, and that you need an entrance-exit pairing relationship. This works well for long-distance travel, (imagine the equivalent of airports or major railroad stations with dedicated booths for major city-pair destinations, like choose two of NY/LA/Chicago/SF/London/Paris/Frankfurt/Tokyo/Hong Kong) but not so much for regular everyday travel, which would be much cheaper to take conventional transportation.

Another option is, if the technology is based on stable wormholes, revolutionise the freight-railroad industry by building tracks through permanent wormholes, allowing through-freight to roll directly from yards on the Pacific Coast to yards in the Midwest and East. That would obsolete the billions being invested in double- or triple-tracking long sections of transcontinental mainline…

Aperture Science / We do what we must because we can…