// pictures and words
“We have a breakdown in many of the things that people rely on to deploy these systems, and then we have people whose expertise is in rubber-banding and bubble-gum-sticking and pulling together things with whatever’s at hand,” Meinrath told Wired News. “That’s very much what we need right now — people with that level of improvisation and expertise.”
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Technorati Tags: CWN, Free Networks, katrina
The Center for Neighborhood Technology’s (CNT) Wireless Community Network project (http://wcn.cnt.org) has responded to the call for technical expertise in establishing communication infrastructure for first responders and evacuees in the Gulf Coast area following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
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Paul Smith and Rogers Wilson III are on the ground and providing updates on the WCN Blog.
If you want to help, contact CNT or donate some cash.
Technorati Tags: CWN, Free Networks, katrina
Sascha Meinrath and a crew of CUWiN folks are headed down to New Orleans to set up communications infrastructure. If you want to help out, contact Sascha, or donate some cash.
Last night at the PTP monthly, Don Park was elected president of the Personal Telco Project for the next two years. Daily Wireless has the writeup.
Congrats Don!
Matt Peterson (Founder of BAWUG and Fellow FreeNetworker) is Blogging from Bhutan.
Although it’s not obvious in his posts, Matt is attending SANOG VI, held in Thimphu, the capital city of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.
Thoughts from Free Press via Sascha Meinrath’s blog.
If the phone companies succeed, the Brand X case will stand as the trigger that reversed a century of communications policy and undermined the bedrock principle of democratic media –nondiscriminatory access for all. Every major technology in the history of this nation designed to facilitate the transport of goods, services and information has operated as an open access network. The railroads, the highway system, the telegraph, the telephone and the Internet all have followed this principle. And in all of these instances, open access rules increased competition.
The FCC’s plans –with the blessing of the high court– would permit cable and telephone giants to cement their control over the communications infrastructure and cut out their competitors. The cozy duopoly of cable and DSL that controls more than 90 percent of the broadband market will be entrenched for a generation. There will be no competitive broadband carriers. There will be no independent ISPs. The thriving new market for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephone service may be destabilized. The owners of the wires will be handed the Orwellian power to determine which content is appropriate to travel over their networks.
Listen to the show, lots of good call-ins, including one from Ralf over at SFLAN with a plug for freenetworks.org!
MIT Roofnet and the South End Technology Center have been testing their software at Tent City. Tent city consists of 220 residential units spread across many four story buildings and a 12-story high-rise located in the South End of Boston. The current Tent City Network only covers a fraction of the apartments that can see the roof mounted APs, but by adding Roofnet nodes, they can improve coverage and cover much more of the complex. 43 nodes were deployed in the April 2nd test, and within the wireless network, transfers were generally fast.
Roofnet used to require a PC running Linux (available as LiveCD) or Linux-based embedded device (like the Metrix Kit), but it is now working on mass-produced linux-based APs such as the Netgear WGT634U
Rob is ordering one right now.
DailyWireless has some details (and pictures) of the PTP Mississippi Grant Project meetings recently mentioned in the Oregonian. For those that don’t know, the project consists of lighting up a pretty large swath of the north Portland neighborhood. Stephouse is donating Internet bandwidth to the project, and the Native American Youth Association will be providing the first rooftop. In addition to setting up a free network and procuring bandwidth for the neighborhood, PersonalTelco will also provide training for the residents on just how all this stuff works.
Congrats guys. Awesome work!
This May, I will be on a panel at MobiHoc, smackdab in the middle of flatland. Frank pointed out that it’s right next to Terre Haute, Indiana. I had no idea. I will take pictures.
Closer to home, in June, I will be speaking at Gnomedex, a geekathon by the folks at lockergnome
Also in the mail today, WSFII 2006 is going to be held in India, possibly Goa. Planning and Prepcon will be held at this years london summit, WSFII 2005 in October.
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