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Better yet, wait for the next Comcast outage, then reconnect everyone. Just reconnect everyone to your neighborhood wifi mesh with something like open mesh or LocustWorld.

If it is a long ways to any broadband, ie. out of range of a Wifi
bridge via yagi antennas you might try having the neighbors
setup a locustworld setup and you can share multiple dial ups
via MESH topology Wifi.

http://www.locustworld.com/

You can always try out www.locustworld.com, though I've never used their hardware.

Your best bet may be a Linksys WRT54GL.

Expensive you say? Try FREE. And this thing also has a torrent

Expensive you say? Try FREE. And this thing also has a torrent

Well, if the law is wrong, one shouldn't abide by it (and hey, I'm not in the USA anyway, and have no intention of going until there's a bit of "regime change" there). But building a wireless mesh network is a rather different story to unauthorised access of wireless APs. A mesh network is the sort of thing you can build with a http://locustworld.com/ MeshAP, and sometimes IS the technology used by a commercial ISP to provide "wireless broadband" (but if so, maybe best you participate in more than one mesh...).

I can buy the power issue. Marvell's chip is one of the better choices for this. Mesh networking, I don't buy.

http://locustworld.com/modules.php?set_albumName=a lbum01&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include= view_album.php

Those are pictures of a mesh networking product/project that runs on Linux and doesn't even USE that
Marvell chip.

There's other low-power options that do this sort of thing- sure, it may be "harder" without the assist from
the Marvell chip, but don't play the "It's the only way to do this thing" card- it's not at all close to the
truth here.

Two ways - Google for a group already working on it in your area (not unlikely), or if you're not as lucky as that then start such a group. Plenty of information online as to how to participate in such a network and you can pretty easily buy off the shelf products to do so (no messy self assembly required). Might try looking at Locust World, Ultramesh, and Community Wireless.

There are too many dead zones between major cities .

Great distances of rural farmland .

http://www.locustworld.com/ is a awesome idea, and they have done some
great things, but there are many places off the coast where distances
between cities is greater than the range of WiFi unless u use the ballon trick .

But long shots in the midwest are going to have to route via
conventional telecom unless we setup telecommunications WiFi ballons .

www.21stcenturyairships.com

Someone has to pay for them ... At least they are cheaper than satellites and fly
high enough to avoid all wind .

Ex-MislTech

http://www.locustworld.com/ built on purely Open Source, deployed even in the US! (where you wouldn't think the monopolies would not allow it, like they won't allow muni wifi...)

So imagine a bunch of these locustworld meshes connected to a google fiber connection point and people are able to for free or some minimal googlebuck charge...

Point well made. Let me go one further by saying the newcomer in a market has to compete with
the current majority used OS and current training base .

Most ppl have learned windows, and most do not want to learn a new GUI/OS all over again
unless they can see obvious benefit of doing so .

Most software they own/use does not run on Linux, though WINE is doing a damn good job, So ...

1) Human nature a lot of ppl will just stick with what they know .

2) Market Nature, ppl don't want to migrate their entire software selection to OSS as they
only see at best a 95% replacement for all programs they currently run .

3) The GPL is not well understood, and the proprietary software business model has been around
for decades and widley used to make ppl "filthy" rich . The ppl with lots of money like money,
and want more of it . The GPL "appears" to question that method, and thus by association
appears to be a direction that may affect their bottom line . And sadly in the US and some
other countries Cash is King . Now just some of what OSS has done ...

1) Apache ( bye bye IIS you dung heap )
2) Open Office ( It runs more stable on windows than their office suite )
3) Mozilla/Firefox - IE killed itself due to ActiveX wide open back door .
4) Thunderbird - a simple but safe mail client that just about anyone can use in a short amount of time.
5) ... Stability ... Speed ... Strength ( Linux full install equals/exceeds a M$ server distro )
6) Community ( developers, users, and corporate sponsorship )
7) The GIMP - alot of ppl at some point are going to need to mod a image, this does it well .
8) Live CD distros for trial/demo ( though the speed hit makes linux look slower than it is )
9) Bit Torrent - supposedly at one point , 1/3 rd of all internet traffic was bit torrent
10) The Locustworld MESH AP - http://www.locustworld.com/ - WiFi MESH relay

There is a LOT more, these are the ones that my half asleep head poured out on short notice .
Saying Linux is stuck on stupid, is stupidity in itself .

The M$ replacement/cloning has to dodge a 50+ billion backed silver bullet worth of dream team lawyers
and SCO financed ankle biters, and with the cash roll M$ has it is gonna throw out a few roadblocks
along the way just like SCO .

The adoption of OSS is happening on a larger scale outside the US as one poster put it, simply to
avoid the cost, and to avoid the DRM, and closed controlled and buggy nature of M$ .

Also keep in mind, M$ had its growth tree from DOS => Today over a period of 21+ years
and had "considerable" financial backing . Not until the last few years has some corporations started
to sink "real" money into Linux and OSS .

The first distro of redhat was 1994 and it was "nothing" like the redhat of today .

You might say Linux did not have a "desktop product" til the later 90's and even then 100% driver
support was not there .

Alot of the driver issues "still" need some fine tuning to get the OEM's onboard .

So comparing 20+ years to less than 10, and less money backing it, Linux is doing fine .

Is it going to take 100 years to reach maturity ??? Hell no, new developers join everyday .

Playing king of the hill with the 800 lb gorilla ( aka M$) is going to take time to
undo its decades of x86 market dominance . They will not go quietly, look at Ballmer(monkey boy) .

I think the writer is just upset M$ isn't dead yet, or he wants it to quit nibbling at his
M$ stock price, either way he gets paid for writing articles that stir the pot and get
him read/noticed .

Peace,
Ex-MislTech

This is the largest area that has good operational mesh networks everywhere, all operated for free by the people, over 4000 nodes.
So here comes the greedy bastard corporations to screw it all up, WTF?
http://www.nodedb.com/australia/
http://www.locustworld.com/

The wireless future will belong to the first company to have a large coverage radius that does not have to be line of sight.

I work at a company that does Canopy wireless broadband and it works great, IF you can see the tower.

The problem with putting a canopy unit on an electric pole and feeding it in through the power lines, is that you would have to put an access point every two blocks to have the needed line of sight to feed the SM, which in turn pumps it into the house (unless your town happens to be in a desert or West Texas).

Those Canopy Access points are very expensive. Those canopy SMs are very expensive. Even using 900 MHz, which does better through trees, the sheer volume of Canopy access points needed to cover any fair amount of territory is going to be too cost prohibitive.

While it isn't perfect either, the closest thing to a cost effective wireless internet plan would be MESHing 802.11 using custom built equipment.

See: http://www.locustworld.com/

I went and checked out a guy who had a small town MESHed with 802.11 using Locustworld.com software and access points he built himself for around 500.00 or less. He had almost 100 customers working nice, some even through moderate tree coverage. I will say that what he was doing worked better than our Canopy setup...which has tens of thousands of dollars tied up in equipment. And the advantage to this is, if the customers are close enough, you don't have to have a subscriber module at the customer's house that cost 400.00 a piece.

I say the only people making money with Motorola Canopy are the few WISPs in fantastic locations...and Motorola!

Usurper_ii

I have broadband and Wi-Fi, I have no WEP or WPA and I expect it to be used - I hope it is used - I hope others will do the same.
I hope to be running a meshing Wi-Fi node soon but I think that the assumption that people don't want you using their connection is wrong. MANY people believe in having open Wi-Fi.
Now to get access someone has to ask for it using DHCP and I have to respond GIVING them an IP address.
Now if someone IP spoofs, or cracks WEP or try to hack my LAN then they are breaching my privacy.
This judgement is clearly wrong from a technical point of view as there was a request for access(DHCP) and IP address response.
There should be no assumption that a Wi-Fi node is not for public use as there is are lots of people who offer this service to be good citizens.

http://www.locustworld.com/ Link to Citywide Wifi Meshing Project Hub

A friend of mine was called to his neighbours to fix his Broadband, when he arrived he found it was not wired to the guys laptop, nor did the MODEM have Wi-Fi, but it use to work set up just this way, the neighbour protested. Turns out he was unwittingly using his neighbours broadband.

Seriously though this sort of misguided ruling could cause real problems for those who advocate a free Wireless Infrastructure, of overlapping nodes, essentially an Internet - not controlled by Teleco's but by individuals

Of course that may be exactly why this sort of ruling is made, to keep packet flow under regulation.
Those in power feered FIDO-Net, Dialup was too mobile, Broadband is nicely locked down to a physical address.
Don't let freedom fall, American people.

Probably the best thing for folks to do is just subscribe to the MeshAP user list and ask questions.

Stevenson near where I live set up a free wifi mesh with funding from the local chamber of commerce. I can easily believe that by putting this sort of stuff in you can increase property values by more than enough to warrent the investment. Folks that don't like this-well they can buy property in a city that doesn't provide taxpayer supported wifi. This stuff is for a city infrastructure just like free drinking fountains-or free sidewalks. Probably one of the best things a city can do to spur economic development.

• Important Stuff

Gee this would be great!... that is if Open Source community hadn't done the damn thing already.

You know what this means don't you? Open source is so far ahead of the curve now that it is being copied, so the real innovation is now in Open Source software, and open to the public before corps can stop it!

$180/node.

You can install SIP for VoIP if you want.

Look at LocustWorld http://www.locustworld.com/, a freely downloadable, open source solution that addresses all of these concerns. These open source guys have already solved all of your problems, you can get your 6Mb/s DSL line and you are in business.

Better yet, I bet everyone of these neighbors / potential clients have an old PC stuffed in a closet somewhere. Stick a WiFi card in each one of them, load the software on the PC, and create a WiFi "Hotzone" in your neighborhood for little to nothing invested.

The A780 includes about 48MB of built-in user storage space...

Things really take off when you put mesh routing into VoIP phones and they start jabbering at each other.

The A780 includes about 48MB of built-in user storage space...

Things really take off when you put mesh routing into VoIP phones and they start jabbering at each other.

The A780 includes about 48MB of built-in user storage space...

Things really take off when you put mesh routing into VoIP phones and they start jabbering at each other.

Understand, I'm not advocating any kids actually do this -- its just a fun, if slightly whacked, idea.

Too bad he did not mention the MeshAP project by locustworld.com

Take a look at locustworld. Mesh routing that just works. Get at least one node with a real connection, then the rest route to it automatically.

Mesh networking provides an innovative method to build complex data networks very easily. Using the intelligence of each component, meshing helps them to join into a self-organising structure. This approach differs from the traditional "top-down" design of data networks, and provides many benefits, including flexibility, speed and ease of management, making it very easy to deploy widespread networks with low overheads.

Mesh Networking is particularly suited to wireless networks, where the connections can't be predicted in the same way as a wired network, catering for mobile nodes, instant growth and unpredictable variations in reception and coverage.

Mesh networking builds up a wide spread multi-hop network making connections between neighbouring nodes on demand. Once connected the nodes can explore the network and establish their routes through it, finding the resources that they need automatically.

The LocustWorld Mesh uses a public networking standard AODV, to build the mesh. AODV, Ad hoc, On demand, Distance Vector, published by NIST, is recognised as a leading standard for wireless mesh networking. The LocustWorld mesh router is available as a software package and as a hardware device, and it is widely used to deliver wireless broadband networking in challenging terrain.

As each mesh node is autonomous, discovering routes on demand, there is no central control to act as a bottle neck. As the network grows the routing task for each node does not grow exponentially, as they only build routes to the resources that they need. Routes are established on demand, and un-used routes are flushed out after a short time.

If one route becomes un-workable then the node will automatically seek out another, providing self-healing structure and removing the reliance on single points of potential failure.

The LocustWorld MeshAP implements wireless mesh networking within a package of features that provide practical support for internet service provision. Mesh networking is not dependent upon any particular physical networking connection. LocustWorld currently support 802.11, Bluetooth and Ethernet. Many other wireless and wired networks are suitable for meshing, and the MeshAP can support them as demand for them develops.

Meshing is a fundamentally different approach to routing through networks, and does not follow the conventions of network design. In a mesh network nodes get given their basic rules of the road, and then they are left to establish their connections autonomously. The node may discover many potential routes through the network, and it will select the most suitable route based upon the shortest distance to reach the other node. Other criteria, such as the quality of the connection, can influence the decision, but ultimately the router decides on the routes itself, and the manager only provides the ground rules.

Meshing delivers networks that are:

Self Organising - each node works the routing out for itself, saving time and effort in administration

Wide Ranging - multi-hop networks extend wireless range around obstacles and over greater distances.

Scalable - just add more nodes. The routing configuration is automatic, and there is no exponential rise in complexity as the network grows.

Resilient - The self organising functions run continuously, so when changes occur to connections and reception the mesh will automatically re-route around blockages in real time.

Affordable - Each

Check out http://www.locustworld.com/ for information about mesh networks.. essentially you hop along your neighbors until you get to a neighbor that has internet, thereby giving everyone internet.

Actually, you are only partially right. Traditional mesh networks, such as the one that MIT has been working on, require routing tables that grow (exponentially) each time a new node is added to the mesh. However, you should read up how LW has solved those issues. From the LW website: "As each mesh node is autonomous, discovering routes on demand, there is no central control to act as a bottle neck. As the network grows the routing task for each node does not grow exponentially, as they only build routes to the resources that they need. Routes are established on demand, and un-used routes are flushed out after a short time."
(Read complete article)

Locustworld.com

Check out Mesh wireless i don't know if anybody has mentioned it but it is a cool idea

Just use the MeshAP software from Locustworld, register your box's hardware key with WIANA and under the administrative menu there set the traffic shaping the way you want for the over-zealous P2P users.

Just use the MeshAP software from Locustworld, register your box's hardware key with WIANA and under the administrative menu there set the traffic shaping the way you want for the over-zealous P2P users.

A British inventor called Jon Anderson did this in full scale quite some time ago.

Have a look at http://www.locustworld.com. The software also can convert an old PC into a mesh-enabled gateway or repeater, as long as you use one of the supported wireless adapters and NIC's.

Yes, it's been mentioned several times on /. too.

Make a wireless mesh network out of these. Remove the 56K modem form the Tiger Direct version and replace with an 802.11 card, then use the bootable ISO image from here to create a mesh metworked access point. The iDOT version may actually be better for this application due to lower power requirements. But I can't tell if it the case has the space for the singel PCI slot. Could be taken a step further and the CDROM removed and booted from compact flash, either with IDE to compact flash adapter?

At $400 for a MeshAP vs $169 + $50= $219 for an 802.11b card, I'll take the Lindows PC.

Dastardly

Now that all of this has been released, I wonder if we will be seeing alternative firmwares with support for new features (detailed external logging, radius server, wireless VLANs like the cisco APs, traffic shaping, oh, and MeshAP could be cool too.) A friend of mine already bought his WRT54G and likes it, but after I found this out (and submitted the story to slashdot) I ordered mine from Amazon($130 with free shipping) along with the NetGear WAG511($85 - 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11b) as recommended by a Toms Hardware review. I'm so excited that I am going to have a dope 54mbps wireless network in my dorm room for only $215. A little excessive, maybe, but hey I will probably keep this for another 5+ yrs. Especially the 802.11a 802.11g cardbus card. Oh hey, if you are shopping, check out the SeattleWireless Hardware Comparison. They have all sorts of info there and it made it easier to decide what to buy.

LocustWorld have a system which can be downloaded and booted on a CD or via a harddisk. They also sell solid state mesh boxes ready to go. Check out what other community projects have managed to do with the kit.

The LocustWorld Meshbox site
Seattle Wireless
Bay Area Wireless Users Grou BAWUG
Kingsbridge Link Community Wireless Network
Consume.net
Meshnet, low cost nodes

This is the general pattern of the defeat of permanet by nearlynet. In the context of any given system, permanet is the pattern that makes communication ubiquitous. For a plane ride, the airphone is permanet, always available but always expensive, while the cell phone is nearlynet, only intermittently connected but cheap and under the user's control.

For some reason, most people percieve their cell phones as being only intermittently disconnected, like on plan flights.

Because 3G requires licensed spectrum, the artificial scarcity created by treating the airwaves like physical property guarantees limited competition among 3G providers.

Wow, they said it but it completly contradicts their artificial distiction system. The "upfront" costs here are everybit as artificial as that system and they know it. The real lesson to be learned is that greedy shcemes don't make money.

... has been running for several months in Kingsbridge, Devon (UK), based on 'off the shelf' hardware, and free software downloadable from LocustWorld.com. There is also a bootable ISO that turns any PC into a Mesh node without overwriting any of the local data! You can download it here - Build 22 is recommended

Who here (or anywhere) is surprised at this?

Form a coop, lease some resellable bandwidth like a Fractional-T1, slap wireless nodes everywhere. "Mesh" networks seem to be the latest buzzword. Use them to route around the broken segment -- aka "phone company".

These people have whole communities meshed with free access!
Kingsbridge Link
Seattle Wireless
This guy has been putting out CDs for years now
MeshBox Central, Locustworld
More links and a project for low cost mesh platforms Gateway-AOL-Appliance, I-Opener, WebSurfer wireless
MeshNet Project

And what's so bad about filesharing without the internet at 2 to 4Mbs BOTH WAYS? (most cable systems limit up stream to 128Kbs or less, meaning your DOWN link sucks) put up a node today!

These people have whole communities meshed, and no big corporate investment $$ needed!
Kingsbridge Link
Seattle Wireless
This guy has been putting out CDs for years now
MeshBox Central, Locustworld
More links and a project for low cost mesh platforms Gateway-AOL-Appliance, I-Opener, WebSurfer wireless
MeshNet Project

Is the protocol that enables mesh networking an open standard? The OpenAP project and the Mesh AP folks use 802.1d, or MAC bridges, to eliminate redundant hops.

You also have the stuff from locust world for mesh networks.

What you describe is possible now using mesh networking technology. See http://locustworld.com/and http://www.meshnetworks.com/

So combine a 'mesh' network topology with say, UltraWideBand (UWB) transmission technology (at higher power of course, or have a node every 10 meters :0 ).

The Mesh gives you the ability to create ad hoc, self-healing, wireless networks and the UWB (at higher power than the FCC currently allows) gives you incredibly high data transfer rates (average is 40 Mbps but it can get up to 1 Gig !!). UWB has the added advantage of being able to not be bocked by walls, water, or rock so it can be used anywhere. Many different apps can use the same frequencies because the information is "Pulse Width" modulated - unless you are listening for a particular pulse size (pico to nano seconds) everything else is ignored and is the same as background noise (and thus won't interfere with local radio, radar etc). Think interlocking networks sharing bandwidth and not interfering with each other...

All of the technology exists today for this totally decentralized network with very good throughput. No need for cables of telco at all. Add in some security features and we have a winner...

And it can only get better

In a hurry, messed up the links. Sorry for the repost.

Of course!

One promising GPL one is Locust World, which combines a bootable Linux distro with the AODV routing software, 802.11 drivers, NAT functionality, and more. The AODV libraries are open source, and you could apply this to just about any wireless medium. More info about AODV in general here.

And of course, the company I work for has a proprietary solution, but it is dependent on using our 802.11b card for the time being. That, and we aren't mass producing hardware at the moment. The tech is certainly there though! Mesh networking with 802.11 is just extending the topology of the wired internet to the wireless world.

As far as routing goes, ad hoc on-demand routing (implemented by the AODV libraries I mentioned above) is probably the best solution for building a scalable network. Wireless links are inherently unreliable, so a pure distance vector algorithm like RIP isn't the best solution, and routing updates on a large network would have a lot of overhead with many nodes.

Forgive me if I glossed over the subject, hopefully other can fill in the blanks =).

Of course!

One promising GPL one is Locust World, which combines a bootable Linux distro with the AODV routing software, 802.11 drivers, NAT functionality, and more. The AODV libraries are open source, and you could apply this to just about any wireless medium. More info about AODV in general .

And of course, the company I work for has a proprietary solution, but it is dependent on using our 802.11b card for the time being. That, and we aren't mass producing hardware at the moment. The tech is certainly there though! Mesh networking with 802.11 is just extending the topology of the wired internet to the wireless world.

As far as routing goes, ad hoc on-demand routing (implemented by the AODV libraries I mentioned above) is probably the best solution for building a scalable network. Wireless links are inherently unreliable, so a pure distance vector algorithm like RIP isn't the best solution, and routing updates on a large network would have a lot of overhead with many nodes.

Forgive me if I glossed over the subject, hopefully other can fill in the blanks =).

Our mission is simple. We like this wireless technology, there is a huge potential in free community networks, as idealised by www.communitywireless.org We will research and make this technology available to everyone at the lowest cost we can. Wherever possible, this will be at the cost of parts. In other words, we're working totally for free here, even charity workers get paid! Where required, we will also help by providing live prototype networks and application development. Our primary interest is simply in providing the enabling technology to make this dream work. All the plans for building or modifying all our units will eventually be available as will the software itself. We hope to distribute this under an opensource license so that others can improve our work.

Our mission is simple. We like this wireless technology, there is a huge potential in free community networks, as idealised by www.communitywireless.org We will research and make this technology available to everyone at the lowest cost we can. Wherever possible, this will be at the cost of parts. In other words, we're working totally for free here, even charity workers get paid! Where required, we will also help by providing live prototype networks and application development. Our primary interest is simply in providing the enabling technology to make this dream work. All the plans for building or modifying all our units will eventually be available as will the software itself. We hope to distribute this under an opensource license so that others can improve our work.