OPT: Inferno: Fw: [nycwireless] Seattle Weekly - "The revolution may be wireless" (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Townsend" <townsnda at yahoo.com>
To: "Telecom-Cities" <telecom-cities at forums.nyu.edu>
Cc: <nycwireless at lists.spack.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:33 AM
Subject: [nycwireless] Seattle Weekly - "The revolution may be wireless"


> 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
these
> 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
the
> 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
the
> 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
they
> know how to drive it. The revolution may not be televised; it's more
> probable that it will be wireless.
>
> info at 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
>
>
>
>
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