Slashdot Mirror
Domain: wirelessleiden.nl
Stories and comments across the archive that link to wirelessleiden.nl.
Comments · 20
-
Re:If the 1st Internet goes to shit
Not sure but maybe this will help you: Wireless Leiden project (wikipedia), W.L. network architecture (in Dutch)
-
Wireless Leiden
If the Internet went down, Pringles would make a killing selling their crisps cans to be used as amplifiers for municipal WiFi such as in the Wireless Leiden project.
(Disclaimer: I've never used a wireless network in my life so YMMV, but I went to a lecture about Wireless Leiden once) -
Re:Free as in...Check out Wireless Leiden; an all volunteer, all community, all donation based free (as in beer) wireless network; covering an area with some 500.000 inhabitants; its FreeBSD based, under a BSD-ish licensen and both code and config tools can be checked out of SVN right away.
So - all of you; stop talking, grab the code and compete who is next !
Dw.
-
Free WiFi by the pplCity wide FREE access to the internet is delivered in some of the big cities in the Netherlands by the people; hobbyist sharing their internet connection to the rest. See for example www.wirelessleiden.nl.
So why need a goverment, just share your connection!
-
Re:The death of land lines?
the city of Leiden is doing the same by providing high points with directional antennas to form a grid and omni-antennas to connect to the users who use directional antennas to reach the omni. the whole thing was supposed to be plugged into a landline internet connection at some point, but for now it is just a networked system.
http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/english/ -
Re:is city-wide wireless too costly or "stifle" ?Heck - we build one here in Leiden, the Netherlands (and yes - it is all open source):
WirelessLeiden 75+ nodes and growing every week.
And the result is rather the opposite; a long list of companies emerged as a direct result of that: AnyWi, Gandalf, Wido and half a dozen others. Making Leiden and the direct region something of a WiFi focal point.
I would not call that effect "stiffling"... the only few people stiffed may be some big incumbents which where to slow to move.
Dw -
check out these guys
take a look at these guys, they've built quite a nice city-wide public wireless network and since they're a non-profit organisation they might have some insights on how to do it on a budget:
http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/
I can freely surf the net from my bed thanks to these people (well, on my g3 ibook that is, the pobo g4 can forget it..) -
Working modelWirelessLeiden is the largest succesfull initiative in the Netherlands. We started in 2001 and have 50+ nodes operational (nodemap), all connected through wireless interlinks, covering an area of about 30 square kilometers on street level and about 100 square kilometeres if you use a proper antenna. This architecture makes is easy to supply Internet with a few DSL uplinks. We have about 1500 active users and about unique 4000 MAC ids have been 'seen' on the network last 2 years.
Our network is build and operated by a foundation with volonteers in a co-operative model. We try to keep the network operations non-commercial, but seek co-operation with commercial entities in services (Internet) and publicity and development. The network is free to be used by anybody. Hence we don't do any authentication, billing and other boring business stuff.
We aim at fixed-wireless usage; Out users are people at home, small business, not-for-profit organisations and schools.
Our network is financed throug the sponsoring of nodes, mainly by the site-owners (sponsor the powerusage as well); about $1500 per node. Through this model we don't have any recurring costs (the DLS lines are sponsored as well) and all investmest are written off immediately.
I talk with a lot of other cities and villages; killer steps IMHO:
start with an IP plan
financing by gouvernment in stead of users
focus on technical challenges.
The succes of your project depends on the focus on organisation. All the technical issues can be copied from others (all our work is documented and released in open source), the work that needs to be done locally can only be organised and steered by YOU!
The local gouvernment is supportive and starts to get interested now that new small business emerge and people get employment through their activities for Wireless Leiden. We are moulding these small startups into a consortium that does development of special wireless applications and YES they also build commercial wifi networks in other cities for $$$.
-
Working modelWirelessLeiden is the largest succesfull initiative in the Netherlands. We started in 2001 and have 50+ nodes operational (nodemap), all connected through wireless interlinks, covering an area of about 30 square kilometers on street level and about 100 square kilometeres if you use a proper antenna. This architecture makes is easy to supply Internet with a few DSL uplinks. We have about 1500 active users and about unique 4000 MAC ids have been 'seen' on the network last 2 years.
Our network is build and operated by a foundation with volonteers in a co-operative model. We try to keep the network operations non-commercial, but seek co-operation with commercial entities in services (Internet) and publicity and development. The network is free to be used by anybody. Hence we don't do any authentication, billing and other boring business stuff.
We aim at fixed-wireless usage; Out users are people at home, small business, not-for-profit organisations and schools.
Our network is financed throug the sponsoring of nodes, mainly by the site-owners (sponsor the powerusage as well); about $1500 per node. Through this model we don't have any recurring costs (the DLS lines are sponsored as well) and all investmest are written off immediately.
I talk with a lot of other cities and villages; killer steps IMHO:
start with an IP plan
financing by gouvernment in stead of users
focus on technical challenges.
The succes of your project depends on the focus on organisation. All the technical issues can be copied from others (all our work is documented and released in open source), the work that needs to be done locally can only be organised and steered by YOU!
The local gouvernment is supportive and starts to get interested now that new small business emerge and people get employment through their activities for Wireless Leiden. We are moulding these small startups into a consortium that does development of special wireless applications and YES they also build commercial wifi networks in other cities for $$$.
-
Re:They'll need to do some catchup - fixed linksI wish slashcode would automatically convert URL's.... fixed links in a handy list for the lazy (like myself
-
Re:They'll need to do some catchup - fixed linksI wish slashcode would automatically convert URL's.... fixed links in a handy list for the lazy (like myself
-
Wireless Leiden - the Why :-)Some people question the need for this; just some background as to why we in Wireless Leiden need this patch
The issue is that througout the city we have omni antenna's - where -anyone- can associate with - and directional antennas which provide the interlinks between nodes (although the network covers a medium sized city - we use no copper; all interlinks are wireless).
On these interlinks we only want node-to-node traffic.
As the network is totally open (no username, password or any thing) - we have no easy way to educate our users to use the right 'omni' antenna's, other than descriptive names. I.e. we do not catch them early enough.
So often people associate with the interlinks rather than the omni (if a beam passes over their house) - and then complain, or are surprized, that DHCP does not give them an address.
This problem is made worse by some windows userinterface tools which will automatically re-select networks based on some internal metric.
So what we wanted was to 'hide' the interlinks. So that clueless users are not accidentally ensnared. Rolands patch does exactly this.
Dw
-
Wireless LeidenAt Wireless Leiden you can read about a volunteer efford which has already build a complete and city wide WiFi network which is free and open (no logon, just open your laptop and hop on).
The 34+ nodes cover a medium sized city (120.000 inhabitants). They have been build by volunteers and rely on donated hardware, locations and the odd bit of electricty donated.
You can fetch the code for a cost of a download (see WiKi: NodeFactory) - all is open source; FreeBSD, OSPF, DHCP, SNMP and SSH are the key bits of technology.
Good to see that commercial effords are trying to follow suit.
Dw
-
DIY
Some links:
KI7cx dish
Primestar dish
Bi-Quad feed for primestar DIY
10 Euro dish with biquad feed
Modifying Confier Antennas for Wireless Networking
More info: Wireless Leiden -
WirelessLeiden.nlUs, that is the folks at http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/ have done very much the same. Lets add the link to Subversion (cvs like source code mngt. system) with all the code - so that we can at least copy each others wheels.
Background: http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/wcl/cgi-bin/moin.cgi
/ NodeFactoryCode (in public subversion):
http://wleiden.webweaving.org:8080/svn/node-config
http://wleiden.webweaving.org:8080/svn/node-config Machines using the code: http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/wcl/cgi-bin/moin.cgi
/ NodeMapThough this one is a bit more fully fledged; as it also includes SNMP management and OSPF routing.
Dw.
-
WirelessLeiden.nlUs, that is the folks at http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/ have done very much the same. Lets add the link to Subversion (cvs like source code mngt. system) with all the code - so that we can at least copy each others wheels.
Background: http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/wcl/cgi-bin/moin.cgi
/ NodeFactoryCode (in public subversion):
http://wleiden.webweaving.org:8080/svn/node-config
http://wleiden.webweaving.org:8080/svn/node-config Machines using the code: http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/wcl/cgi-bin/moin.cgi
/ NodeMapThough this one is a bit more fully fledged; as it also includes SNMP management and OSPF routing.
Dw.
-
Also check out WirelessLeiden.nl
Wireless Leiden is the first Dutch free (libre/gratis) wireless internet facility to cover a complete city. It was engineered by a couple of amateur enthousiast and financially backed by individual donations as well as sponsoring from University and municipal office.
Lots of howtos and faqs (though probably less accessible to non-Dutch speakers)
-
Re:I hate it.
I'm not sure but you might find some interesting stuff and people that can help you at Wireless Leiden; a group of WiFi enthousiasts trying to set up a city-wide ammateur network.
-
Initiative in Leiden (Dutch universisty city)
This is exactly what's happening in Leiden, the Netherlands. (English version here)
The idea is to make sure there's an open and free (as in beer) network of interconnected 802.11b WLAN hubs, before telcos or other commercial initiatives eat up the available bandwidth. Getting a stable network with good coverage is first priority. Getting BBS-like applications (or video distribution, or grid computing, or...) is second. Using it for last-mile internet access has a relatively low priority, but is not ruled out.
--
The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children -- Linus Torvalds
Check it out! -
Initiative in Leiden (Dutch universisty city)
This is exactly what's happening in Leiden, the Netherlands. (English version here)
The idea is to make sure there's an open and free (as in beer) network of interconnected 802.11b WLAN hubs, before telcos or other commercial initiatives eat up the available bandwidth. Getting a stable network with good coverage is first priority. Getting BBS-like applications (or video distribution, or grid computing, or...) is second. Using it for last-mile internet access has a relatively low priority, but is not ruled out.
--
The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children -- Linus Torvalds
Check it out!
