Mega Public WAN In Sydney

Chris Meder writes: "As posted on CFGN - The Nation , gibed by the recent unreasonable price hikes in Broadband connectivity in Australia, which come already after a strained relationship between Broadband users and the major telco/ISP Telstra BigPond Internet, a group of people in the largest Australian metropolitan city of Sydney have decided to form a city wide amateur wireless network. The team behind this clever idea have also put up a detailed graphical database of people interested and are still looking for more numbers to get this off the ground." This last part reminds me of the Global Access Wireless Database, as featured here. Update: 01/23 18:53 GMT by T : Reader Peter Mann wrote to point out that "there's a mailing list for a similar wireless project in Sydney at http://sydney.air.net.au."

Comments

who will be their provider?

[SonCorn]

Are they just going to buy a line from whoever runs the main line linking .au to the rest of the world? is that Telstra? I probably don't understand the situation, but how many companies are there in Sydney that you can buy an internet pipeline from? Just some random thoughts on the subject. Any answers?

Question on posibility of advanced networking

[chabotc]

What could you _realy_ do with a network like this? It seems obvious that a lot of nodes will go on / off, packets will get droped, and the optimal routes will be ever changing.

Would a good BGP routing setup deal with this? Preferable you would even setup multiple outbound gateways (thru ip-masq if need be for adsl/cable outbound routes)

Also a nice amount of squid clusters could realy help out here..

I think that if you would release a complete high-tech network design on this style of setup, you could truely create a decentralised, flexible and unstopable network.

Now imagine, if they would link up a lot of outgoing gateways (cable, adsl thru ip masq), and allow notebook users to link up @ any location in the city thats within the area covered.

Add to this some nice ftp mirrors, BBS style websites, and you would have a hackers dream ;-)

Cool, but be careful

[foo fighter]

I know this is an amature/not-for-profit project, and I am clueless about Australian law.

But, I'd highly suggest the core people responsible for the administration of this project incorporate and seek legal counsel. If you search around you could probably find a lawyer to help you pro bono. I definetely recommend this approach for everyone thinking about doing this sort of thing in the US (I know several articles discussing that very thing have been on Slashdot).

There are significant risks to these individuals, both from individuals utilizing this service, and from the upstream provider who probably isn't aware that its bandwidth is being shared by an entire metropolitan area. When a user is hacked, or the upstream provider finds out these people are breaking the TOS lawsuits will fly.

This is really cool, and I wish them all the best, just use common sense and get some legal advice.

Suppression? How about ridicule instaid?

[autopr0n]

Yes, Australia a land where prostitution is legal, but putting porn on the internet isn't. Real 'revolutionary' there. The fact of the matter is, what these people are doing is revolutionary, but they're driven to it by an unresponsive government (that continues to support a monopoly). And they certainly aren't doing anything outside of the law. In the US we really don't need anything like this desperately because we have at least a reasonable amount of competition (cable vs DSL at least in most places are almost always controlled by separate companies)

I mean, this project (though hardly unoriginal in the AU) is cool, but it really has nothing to do with class warfare or anything like that, just botched government regulation and support of a monopoly.

Anyway, the AU increasingly appears to be a nation ruled by a red-necked majority. Thank god the US has a good constitution to prevent crap like that.

Reminds me

[ByteHog]

of a similer thing in Seattle. http://www.seattlewireless.net

It's too bad that I don't live close enough to help with it. That would be fun.

Fibre optics is the way to go

[tomas.bjornerback]

Wireless is cute, but I still think that wherever possible, cheap fibre optic cables should be used.

3M's Volition Series is an excellent example -- we used it to get 100 Mbps Internet in our block.

Combine fast connectivity with a local DMZ to which it is for free to connect and all data traffic within the DMZ is free, and you've got a success on your hands.

Use wireless only where it is impossible to install fibre optics, but you will be amazed over how many tubes/pipes already present under roads et.c. which can be used with a permit!

Re:Looking At The Future

[yobbo]

There is one immediate problem with these types of networks. Line Of Sight.

I, along with many other you hopeful's (who can't afford australian broadband) planned on building a wireless network in my city of Adelaide. We had absolutely no trouble getting enough people to join, but the problem was that in suburban areas it is hard to gain line of sight to other people, because of things such as next door neighbours with 2 storey houses, and trees were also a big problem.