http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0129/tech-fleishman.shtml
Published July 19 - 25, 2001
The revolution may be wireless: Northwest networkers work toward a
complete
communications grid, minus the corporate interest.
BY GLENN FLEISHMAN
WHEN I WAS A KID, before I discovered theater and girls, a friendly
amateur
radio operator (a "ham") took me under his wing, helped me learn Morse
code,
and introduced me to the joys of talking to people all over the world
using
a transmitter.
Fade quickly into adolescence, acting, and acne, and I could barely
remember
the dits and dahs--ham slang for dots and dashes--to tap out an SOS.
But those days return vividly when I speak with techie sophisticates who
are
building their own free community wireless networks, networks which,
coincidentally, share some open radio frequencies with hams.
These networkers string their tin-can network--sans string but including
some real cans--from apartment to storefront to rooftop for no better
reason
than because they can and because it's cool. The fact that it's useful,
helps the public good by expanding free access, lets them meet their
neighbors ("Hi, I'm running a free network"), and might even put the
screws
to cell companies and telco giants--these are but lagniappe.
Adam Shand, the organizer of a late June summit in Portland, Ore., of
network builders and advocates, thinks that the interest stems from it
being
a "fun geek problem." As to the upshot of it all, he says, "No one's quite
sure yet; we don't know what our ending goal is."
Seattle finds itself with a growing group of enthusiasts led, as much as
any
group of this kind can be led, by Matt Westervelt under the rubric Seattle
Wireless (www.seattlewireless.net). Matt and others have collected a few
dozen geographically dispersed nodes in homes and places like Aurafice
Cafe
on Capitol Hill. They are nearing the point where they stitch these points
into a sprawling, mostly seamless grid using cheap, off-the-shelf, and
even
homemade equipment.
The Seattle crew and dozens of similar networks around the world rely on
IEEE 802.11b (or Wi-Fi), the industry standard for high-speed, low-power
wireless. It doesn't require a license to broadcast on the frequencies it
uses in the 2.4 gigahertz band; Wi-Fi uses some of the thinly apportioned,
unlicensed free public spectrum.
Wi-Fi runs at very low power due to FCC limits, but it can still span
dozens
to hundreds of feet indoors through walls and floors; the high frequency
allows the radio waves to pass through. Outdoors, however, the distance
expands dramatically. Twenty-mile line-of-sight tests using cheap
equipment
were successful, and I've heard of many working multiple-mile links.
The 802.11b protocol allows central access points (APs) to coordinate
networks of machines or to connect multiple wired networks. Dozens of
manufacturers make APs, as well as PC cards for laptops, PCI cards for
desktops, USB and Ethernet adapters for older machines, and special
modules
for handhelds like the Handspring Visor.
With enough density of APs, you can build a seamless network allowing both
indoor and outdoor use at speeds of megabits per second. You could walk
around with a laptop streaming video off the Net with nary an
interruption.
(A Wall Street Journal story earlier this year followed someone doing just
that around London.)
Most volunteers' nodes have a high-speed DSL or cable modem connection to
the Internet. The volunteers are engaging in anarchic enlightened
self-interest: By freely sharing their bandwidth, they're increasing the
value and coverage of the entire network, making it more likely for others
to join and share as well. (It warms my heart, reminding me strongly of
1994-vintage barely commercial Internet.)
These volunteers typically also have the advantage of access to their own
roofs and windows, where they mount cheap, sometimes homemade high-gain
antennas that extend the range and sensitivity of a network.
This is where the free networkers believe they have an advantage over
commercial services, such as MobileStar (www.mobilestar.com), Starbucks'
wireless networking partner (see "Wired But Wireless," May 31). Commercial
outfits would have to make their own, presumably fee-based arrangements to
locate and service antennas and high-speed network connections.
It's hard to call free wireless networking a movement, because the dozens
of
organizations and thousands of individuals involved are scattered around
globe. But a loose affiliation has started to develop, and the recent
Portland summit furthered ties among builders from Seattle, Portland, and
Vancouver, and those farther afield in New York and the Bay Area.
Some met privately one day to discuss creating an association and pooling
resources, and the next day met in public to present several sessions on
building antennas, creating network maps online, and the status of for-fee
Wi-Fi (disclaimer: I was gently roped into presenting).
The interest is there; the nodes exist; the volunteers are working hard.
These advocates and builders may not know why they're on this bus, but
---------- Forwarded message ----------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Townsend" <townsnda@yahoo.com>
To: "Telecom-Cities" <telecom-cities@forums.nyu.edu>
Cc: <nycwireless@lists.spack.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:33 AM
Subject: [nycwireless] Seattle Weekly - "The revolution may be wireless"
these
the
the
they
know how to drive it. The revolution may not be televised; it's more
probable that it will be wireless.
info@seattleweekly.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
----
Loosely affiliated members of this group include:
BAWUG, primarily an educational group: www.bawug.org
Nocat, in Marin County north of San Francisco, some of the members of
which
also happen to work for technical publisher O'Reilly & Associates:
nocat.net
PDXWireless and Personal Telco in Portland, which have merged their
interests and meetings: www.personaltelco.net, www.pdxwireless.com
NYCWireless: www.nycwireless.net
BCWireless: www.bcwireless.net
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
--
NYC Wireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/
Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/
Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Jim Choate