496 Project Cooperation

From BluWiki

Dave's goal on 3/24 was to find out more information about pre-existing cooperative wifi networks. Here's a collection of links, some good, some not so good.

There's a collection of research that talks about barriers to traditional/capitalistic wireless and the uprising of social/cooperative sources (think Wikipedia.) There are other sites that talk about security and privacy in a free give away wireless network.

I was looking for solutions that we might investigate dropping into existing wifi locations on campus. I was assuming we would do a survey of wireless in CU as part of this project, and as such, I was looking for "put this software on a Linksys router and you'll have a cooperative network"

I sure didn't find that. There's a lot of linkrot in this particular area. All of the free-as-in-beer startups that seemed good (MIT's RoofNet have turned into commercial ventures like Meraki.net) Lots of links are now not found.

If you do find information about cooperative wireless, they don't necessary talk about implementation. Or they use proprietary hardware. As the Arstechnica article warned, perhaps true coop wireless is too difficult. Maybe it's not the fad anymore, as most of the links Dave has found were from the 2003-2006 timeframe.

Maybe I should spend more time looking at OpenWRT firmware? Maybe mesh/sharing capabilities are common place now in modern wireless hacking and it's not a big publicized thing anymore. I don't really think that's true. I expect if that was true I would have found documentation on it easier than reading through OpenWRT command-line configuration examples (and I'm not ready to dig that deeply yet.)

State of Wireless London - our project might be something similar to this for the CU area

• http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/03/meraki-mini-wifi-router-also-does-mesh/
• http://www.chuckfletcher.com/?p=28 - Bought some Minis and blogged about playing with them
• http://www.dfwfreenet.org/wiki/doku.php - Found off the Engadget comments

• http://gigaom.com/2007/03/17/really-plug-and-play-wifi/
• http://www.netequality.com/
• http://forums.meraki.com/

DY's email: 3/28/08

I am especially interested in using survey results to compare the cost of two hypothetical WiFi deployment scenarios. In the first scenario, all of the privately-owned, closed access points turn overnight to open access points, so anywhere you can go, if there is any WiFi at all, it is open Internet access. In the second scenario, a municipality deploys access points on lampposts and on telephone polls, aiming for equal coverage as the private APs provide. What does the municipal system cost to build and to operate? What do the private access points and the private DSL/cable subscriptions cost? I am interested in the answer to the question: if the city government wants ubiquitous, cheap or free WiFi access for its citizens, is it more cost-effective to invest in outdoor access points and to purchase bandwidth, or to produce incentives for wireless sharing, such as a rebate on access points with sharing features?

Of course, closed access points are NOT going to turn overnight to open access points. In my experience, however, most access points are replaced every year or two by new ones with better features and longer range. If every AP for sale today had wireless sharing features like the FON APs do, how long before 99% of APs in use have the wireless-sharing features?

Do those questions make sense? I think that if you survey the apartment building (both the dwellers and the WiFi activity) and do study muni WiFi a bit, then you will have some information to help you answer them.

broadband deployment council - cost, speed, availability of Internet in rural

Lt Gov - take on whatever the Gov doesn't want to do

wrote MS thesis on telecomm policy (fed but works in state, PUC)

Illinois Commerce Commission - relatively limited role

surprised by role and influence of lobbyists

Kankakee, Aurora, Naperville - muni wireless (Mt Vernon)

utility companies set rules on who can mount and how much law proposed for std rate and conditions for wireless equipment for utility poles not currently resolved (but could be) hb 4021 died in rules cmte ilga.gov HB4120

wardrive around a small community (Tolono or St Joe or something) calculate existing wireless, maybe try to infer some sort of range talk to the librarian there

take that data and.... some sort of cost analysis for different scenarios municipal hotspots community wireless (broadband to the home -- mesh)