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Back at the start of the net, many people started to build their own little networks (e.g. the "freenets", which existed long before freenet) and make connections with their neighbours. This activity was wiped out when ISPs started providing service at less than cost in order to build their business, making freenets not worth the investment. Now we are back at the stage where ISPs are trying to make money and messing up the service. It's time to restart building those networks and move off the commercial ISPs. Does anybody know any good places to start this? I'm ready to interconnect with my neighbours. How do we arrange sensible cheap long distance interconnectivity?

What about freenetworks.org? Are Wifi Coops any good? Any others?

Not only does it tweak your neighbor, it also produces a high-pitched whining noise from people who choose to find it offensive to their moral sense.

One of the best responses to the "But no childish games please." bleat was the note that "Pranks are a big part of the hacker ethic." , which indicates that Electroschock's "understanding of hacker ethics" is a bit off. (Note that the prankster explicitly referred to this as an alternative to securing the network:

My neighbours are stealing my wireless internet access. I could encrypt it or alternately I could have fun.

I.e., the network is "open" in the 802.11 sense, but isn't "open" in the sense that he wants people to be able to happily surf normally using his connection, or in the sense that you can expect your traffic through the network to be unmolested at any protocol level. Think of it, if you will, as a form of encryption. Yes, you can choose to view the act of not securing a network at the 802.11 level as an invitation to use the network as you please without any obligation on your part either to compensate the person providing the network or to provide a network others can use. You can also choose to view the act of not locking a bicycle as an invitation to use it as you please without any obligation to return it when you're done, compensate the person providing the bicycle, or provide a bicycle that others can use, but, if you do, in neither case would I take your moral views on that subject very seriously, and I suspect most other people - including, perhaps, even fans of free networks or bicycle-sharing programs - would do so, as moral views of that sort leave some people free of moral constraints on the issue in question.)

Electroschock's speaking of "P2P" in this context was also a bit off; he said "The net should be a net and wireless technology is great for the creation of a real P2P internet." "P" in "P2P" stands for "peer"; unless your neighbors are letting you use their wireless network, what's going on isn't peer-to-peer, it's somebody deciding that they're entitled to your bandwidth but they don't have to provide any bandwidth of their own.

In an ISP-less world of free networks, I think it'd be inappropriate to muck with the network access of people whose packets happen to be traversing your network if it's part of a free (inter)network. That's not a world people use ISPs to route their packets to the rest of the Intarweb, and in which some people use other people's ISP connections to route their packets to the rest of the Intarweb, however, and that's the world the prankster is speaking of.

You're right , we should have been done this before FON and its "community".... http://freenetworks.org/ is a good start We try to federate networks in france : http://wireless-fr.org/ as well , but law-infringment problems still exists... Hopefully http://wifidog.org/ will help this .... Maybe we should built a money driven foundation to build this....

Perhaps it is time to take back *our* Internet, and more importantly, *MY* Internet. While I am only a generic sysadmin, and not Vinton Cerf, I did help build the Internet in what it is today. I worked at ISPs, webshops, and software huts. I took care of Internet customers. I told everyone how useful the Internet was. I posted to Usenet, sent emails, published videos, toyed with mashups, and other things. I helped make the Internet work, even if only in a teensy tiny small way.

I want to continue to experiment with everything Internet. I want to post, and send email, and publish. A tiered Internet would not make that financially possible for me, if I have to have two or three colocations to publish my stuff. Or, by not being an approved corporation that is allowed to reach certain network endpoints, how do I reach my intended audience?

So I suggest that the Internet's users take back what is rightfully theirs, and ours, and more importantly to me, mine. We can build our own infrastructure, which some groups have already started doing. Go get some wireless gear. Learn about it. Go wardriving. Have fun at a Wi-Fi shootout. Know the geeks in the area. I think the best way to take back our Internet, is to own a larger piece of it. I think the only way this can happen, is if there are more of us interested in wireless networking -- enough of an interest to start taking this more seriously.

Boy do I wish I were a better salesman sometimes.

Mesh IP-routing is actually quite widespread in experimental free comunity networks theese days. Check out http://www.freenetworks.org/
Ofcause I am going to use this oppertunity to promote http://www.olsr.org/ ;-)

Senao Card info (they appear to be good cards - and Linux support is good since they're Prism-based)

This page lists cards by receive sensitivity. IIRC, the Demarc/Senao/Engenius cards at the top of that list are all Prism-based and have antenna ports.

Nope . . . $250 is not free as in beer.

See FreeNetworks.org, Consume or Wireless Anarchy for more.

in response to all the people posting "so how do i stop evil k1dd135 using my bandwidth?" - why not just stick to secure (ssh, https) protocols and share it?

Granted this isn't suitable for a lot of business networks, but still - wouldn't it be cool if you could walk down the street and stay connected to icq without getting your ass kicked?

For mre information on communities/groups working on this check out Freenetworks.org.

They have a bunch of info for people looking to get involved in such a project.

Just an example:

Several folks in Corvallis, Oregon that run "open" wireless access points have banded together and formed the "Corvallis Area Federated Wireless Access Providers," or CAFWAP. Our website is www.cafwap.net. If you live in the willamette valley, please visit our webpage!

For mre information on communities/groups working on this check out Freenetworks.org.

They have a bunch of info for people looking to get involved in such a project.

Just an example:

Several folks in Corvallis, Oregon that run "open" wireless access points have banded together and formed the "Corvallis Area Federated Wireless Access Providers," or CAFWAP. Our website is www.cafwap.net. If you live in the willamette valley, please visit our webpage!

Stuff like this is already happening, in some form, in several cities around the US. Check out Seattle Wireless, Austin Wireless, NYC Wireless, and FreeNetworks ...

Seattlewireless.net (among others) are listed as part of the free network "affiliates" here... http://www.freenetworks.org

Here's a good effort: http://www.freenetworks.org

Already going on:

http://www.freenetworks.org

• IMAP via TLS & SSL
• SMTP via TLS & SSL with Auth - Allowing you to send mail from any return address after you have already authenticated
• POP via SSL
• WebMail via Full SSL (not just the login)
• Allow you to forward your other email accounts to it
• Allow you to send from a return email address of your other account (i.e. yourname@yourcompanyemail.com).
• Fetchmail functions for automatic downloading of your other email accounts.
• A reasonable amount of disk storage
• The option to download your email for offline archiving

Check out Freenetworks.org for a list of public networks.

Check out http://www.wirelesstcp.com/best/compare.html for a list of private WISP's.

Making a wireless LAN with Bluetooth is just a pointless as making an 802.11b enabled phone.

Yes, except that an 802.11b enabled phone would effectively be a VoIP cell phone. If the freenets have their way, you could set up your own VoIP gateway back at home on your broadband connection and have your very own cellular phone, sans air time charges. Naturally, it would be a little flaky and a little limited compared to the commercial cell networks, but you did hear me when I said sans air time charages, right? The same goes for contracts.

And besides, all those issues will be solved eventually.

Here are some URLs you might find interesting: HPWREN (featured here recently) have a 45mb backbone using western multiplex tsunami kit, and 802.11b access points. They use solar power and batteries to power some backbone nodes.

Some other people using mostly 802.11b kit who will have some information you can use: BAWUG PersonalTelco.net NoCat.net Freenetworks.org

Using 802.11b or similar tech, you should expect each wireless hop to add about 5ms of latency, maybe a little more depending on distance. You can quite easily build a repeater by connecting two bridges together by a X-over cable. You could probably do this with Linksys WAP11 or similar, but over this type of distance you will find it much easier to use something like the high-spec version of Cisco Aironet 350 bridges (the 100mW versions will push the signal a lot further - 25 miles with 24dBi antennas - you can use Cisco's own, alternatives include Superpass (based in Waterloo), HyperLinkTech and others.

Aironet bridges let you set the distance of the link which modifies timing parameters (a slight problem with standard 802.11b over long distances), and their security is better than WEP.

There's plenty of homebrew opportunities for antennas and other related kit, although I guess they're probably of more use to people who don't have a budget to play with (: There's a collection of links on this page with a particular focus on homebrew kit.

Check out Freenets for just that. There are many wireless "freenets" being deployed throughout the world. Personally, I don't believe their model will work for the long-term because the providers are going to catch on and shut them down, considering most of the freenets are violating the providers' TOS agreements.

However, a model that would work is having businesses who would like to place a public wireless access point in their place of business where people could come in with their own equipment and access the 'Net. The business would pay the provider for the access point and the bandwidth, then turn around and do as they wish for this service, i.e. resell it to customers, give it away, whatever.

Granted, this is focusing on the Richmond, Va. right now, but the uniqueness of the model is flexible enough to consider other regions starving for broadband services. The spin on the model is to sell broadband access and equipment (either via fixed wireless, frame relay, whatever) to businesses, such as coffeeshops, restaurants, and any other entity which may benefit from having a wireless public access point in their facility which may be used by anyone with a laptop and their own radio card.

There are many Freenets around but they all base their models on turning around and giving away their providers' access, which is commonly a violation of the providers' TOS agreements.

There are many issues to think about with this particular model, i.e. security, configuration, compatiblity, etc., but I truly believe it could be very successful, IMHO.

As long as the setup adheres to the 1W limit and the gain specifications for the antennas there is no issue. The FCC permits this.

The 'limiting' factor that would keep people from exceeding those limits is the PC card itself. If you step up the power at the access point but the cards themselves can't be hyped up, it's just a waste. iow if the access point can 'hit' the card at 5 miles but the card has a short range...

I wonder how hard building a 2.4Ghz brick for the car would be ;-).

FCC 802.11b restrictions
More information

While the AC has a point, poster - I don't think he is thinking of the alternative that is springing up, and rapidly: wireless freenets

Cool, After talking to consume.net over in England, our intrepid head of the propoganda team, aka ipl31, threw a box up with good bandwidth to network all the community wireless groups. It's over here, Freenetworks. Of course it's running slashcode, so everyone would feel at home. :-)