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I was at the Houston Wireless Users Group (HWUG - http://www.houstonwireless.org/) meeting last night and this was our primary topic. One concern we had was stations supervised by licensed operators and classed under Part 97 communicating with Part 15 Unlicensed (eg Joe Sixpack WiFi APs) stations. I believe the consensus is that you're not supposed to communicate like that, but I don't think anyone has proposed effective access controls for it. Any suggestions?

Houston Wireless User Group just discussed this as our presentation for last night's monthly meeting, oddly enough, complete with a very nice presentation by Erewhon.

Houston Wireless User Group just discussed this as our presentation for last night's monthly meeting, oddly enough, complete with a very nice presentation by Erewhon.

The wireless group in Houston is building even smaller boxes that are capable of doing everything that this box does. A HOWTO is being assembled here. They are using the Soekris Net4501 in combination with the DWL-520 802.11b PCI card to run Linux and push HostAP and NoCatAuth. The Soekris comes with 3 NICs and no moving parts!

Here in Houston, the public library system is on the cutting edge of rolling out free public 802.11b access in all their libraries. A guy from the library system regularly comes to our Houston Wireless user group meetings, and that alone speaks volumes, because I don't see any companies sending representatives.

The problem is that the nodes seem to need to be in contact with each other, eg, one NIC per node, and you must be on the same channel as all the other nodes. While certainly useful, it seems to require a relatively high density.

http://www.houstonwireless.org/ and http://www.seattlewireless.org/ appear to be working on systems that work better in multihomed intelligently routed (well, assigned by a person and not guessed at by a machine - which is better may be up for debate) environments. Much less density is required in these types of situations, but near-universal is definately not guaranteed.

I'd like to see first, if this system can support multiple wireless nics, and second, how it behaves in a large scale setting. Second B, how does it work if you have a few directional antennae pointed at each other? The way most meshes appear to get around this is to set client-serving nodes in AP mode, and use ad-hoc for directional (routing) links.

This definately has promise.

We actually just recently did a demonstration of streaming video of rather high quality at the Houston Wireless Users Group meeting. Parts of the presentation are here and the quality was extremely good (full-screen, 30fps). It was done with multicast to a coffee house full of users, while we all surfed the web, etc. No bandwidth problems.

We actually just recently did a demonstration of streaming video of rather high quality at the Houston Wireless Users Group meeting. Parts of the presentation are here and the quality was extremely good (full-screen, 30fps). It was done with multicast to a coffee house full of users, while we all surfed the web, etc. No bandwidth problems.

The truth is about halfway down the article, where they acknowledge that 802.11g is coming down the pike with better range than 802.11a, plus backwards compatibility with 802.11b. Any of us who already have investments in 802.11b are going to be more than a little hesitant to rip out that infrastructure and replace it with another incompatible format - when we can get an even better format, with backwards compatibility, by waiting a few more months.

I don't even buy the argument that homeowners just now getting wireless should get 802.11a equipment: they can't take their wireless cards and use them at public or private 802.11b access points. Why pay extra for something you can only use at home, when you can get something cheaper that works all over the US? It would be like buying a cellular phone that only worked in your neighborhood.

I help organize the Houston Wireless Users Group, and the PhotonSphere, a site dedicated to wireless freenet advocacy. A few days ago, we received an email from the Electronic Frontier Foundation concerning what is happening in New York. Basically, the EFF is searching for regional and local ISPs who have Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) that allow you to do what you want with the bandwidth you purchase from them. If you are familiar with your AUP, please visit The Sphere and post what you know so that we may pass this information along to the EFF. The full letter from the EFF may be found here as well.

I made a presentation at our local HoustonWireless meeting regarding becoming a 501(c)(3). The presentation slides are here. The slides aren't entirely self-explanatory, but hopefully they'll be useful to someone.

I made a presentation at our local HoustonWireless meeting regarding becoming a 501(c)(3). The presentation slides are here. The slides aren't entirely self-explanatory, but hopefully they'll be useful to someone.

I think they should add an 802.11b antenna to it. That why I dont have to point my omni out the window in order to get on Mobilestar or Houston Wireless Freenets.