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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."
i read that as "Mega Public WANG" at first.
hey, it's the Australians. you just never know.
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?
What good is a used up world, and how could it be worth having? --Sting
Great idea, really -- only one person has to get really big files across the wire and then they all share them.
I predict we'll see a lot more of this if the price of bandwidth doesn't come down soon...
--
Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
Sounds like an excellent opportunity for an unscrupulous individual. Sounds like a security cesspool to me.
Maybe I am too jaded. Maybe there is hope!
How to Download YouTube Videos
You couldn't find a better thread to post this in?
Melbourne has had it's own wireless network running, as have other cities in australia. Visit air.net.au for an idea of other projects which have been going for much longer.
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
Look here for information on the Sydney LAN.
--Metrollica
None of this 'we can't make any money on broadband' comes as too much of a shock to me. I mean, we've all known all along how little (if not negative) any given broadband connection pays.
Say I go home to my cable modem and suck down 2 gigabytes of data on my unmetered line. This isn't so unreasonable technologically. Maybe it'll take me a while to do, but hey, it's not that much of an issue for me. On the other hand, my ISP is now not making any money on me this month. ISPs depend on people getting broadband and looking at a few web pages just like all-you-can-eat sushi places depend on people ordering a few pieces and maybe some maki and going home.
As downloadable media becomes larger and more proliferic, we're likely to see more and more ISP's either closing down, raising prices, or capping/metering transfers to survive.
-- Mike wildcard@illuminatus.org
Their internet access pipe gets a /.'ing before it can even get off the ground, there are gonna be a lot of screaming Aussies tomorrow! This brings a new meaning to DoS! A simple Slashdot linking will saturate all lines of communication with Australia.... Oops, I guess we did it again.
Need a large scale example of this working, and it might get replicated elsewhere in the world. Doing it wireless means that everyone invests their own share of the infrastructure cost when they get connected, and therefore a single entity isn't hauling around a huge pile of debt while trying to make a profitable business out of it.
Good luck to these guys.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Correction to the url above
Now I can spread a virus across the WAN and cause everyone's start page to be goatse.cx!
goatse.cx is the answer to everything, remember that cumquats.
- The BOFH Troll
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.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Being able to network with all your neighbors is nice, but it wont replace broarband for downloading the latest game patches, mods, mp3s, divx's, etc.
They could do a deal with an ISP or maybe hook up with something like APANA, but who would pay, and how would fees be collected? As soon as you start involving money, it gets messy. And not many people would be willing to donate their seperate Internet connections bandwidth for other people's default routes.
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random numbers is, of course, in a state of sin.-John von Neumann
anyone in London want to start one up? ;-)
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
As many people have assumed, it its typically not the purpose of these networks to share internet access, its just a big lan, and everyone has their own pipe, the idea is that you can share files, mabey play some games, all without any bandwith charges, and save your internet connection for things you cant get over the WAN
Non-exhaustive list:
Adelaide
Brisbane
Gold Coast
Melbourne
Mudgee
Perth
Sydney
Western Sydney
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
I can just see the goatse.cx guy popping up on people's wireless devices while they're strolling through downtown Sydney...
It's a WAN (potentially) allowing communications across Sydney, not access to the internet. Useful for chatting to your mates, not surfing the web (unless someone sets up a gateway to the internet).
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Crikey - there's at least four just in Perth!
Perth: http://www.e3.com.au
Perth: http://www.innaloo.net
Perth: http://www.perthwireless.net
Perth: http://www.lwn.net.au
Never mind all the others around Oz
Brisbane: http://www.brishmesh.net
Melbourne: http://melbwireless.dyndns.org
Gold Coast: http://www.xtreme.net.au
Mudgee: http://hwy.com.au/~bigmoe/wlan
Just to name a few... Do some damn research you Monkeys! Sydney Wireless is just one of at least 20 separate wireless groups in Australia.
wut?
It also encourages co-operation, sharing (in the positive ways the internet does), and community spirit.
If we could see more projects like this, perhaps internet (or the controls that ISP's and government have over it) will become redundant, and return to the loose connection of computers around the world that it once was.
..It's a MAN, not a WAN.
In 30 minutes, nothing changes.
In 30 days, you'll see a little growth.
In 30 months you'll see major progress.
In 30 years it will all be filled in.
Why is it that so many people think that the internet is censored in Australia? Websites hosted in Australia are, not the net.
sic transit gloria mundi
Legal advice may not be necessary if they never share a broadband pipe, or even a modem, that connects to another ISP, telecom, or whatever.
The idea I've always promulgated is this: build a new internet using the wireless tech. Eventually lasers or tightly focused beams can provide backbones through which local WANs can communcate.
The Internet has been taken over by corporations and the guv'mint. The flimsy yet powerful excuses of hackers, child porn and terrorists were enough to get our doors kicked down.
Damn the Internet, damn the law, and gawd damn the lawyers. Let's bring the joy back to our world again. Get a kilt and some blue paint. Time to moon the emmeny.
Try searching for "ripping off BBSpot" next.
sic transit gloria mundi
But its not in Tasmania.... Infact its quite a way from Tasmania....
i can assure you i did not base anything off bbspot. i have never been to their site.
--Metrollica
In brisbane there are 397 nodes, and 25 active interfaces.
;)
If it wasn't for heaps of hills in brisbane, there would be more links I'm sure.
I've got my two cards, and lap tops, just need to get the pig tails and construct a couple of aerials.
Not so much excitement as there was a few months ago, as people move to actually get links active.
Also much of the excitement died down when a few people started getting polical and beurocraticalness++
But that is needed as people need to deal with the government. Much of brisbanes success is because of its organisation, and some very helpful people.
Organisation, and helpfulness is the key to making these things work(plus having a telco which likes to shaft everyone helps with peoples motivation
http://brismesh.org/
How is it any different to a large DSL install base? You just need to make sure that whatever device people are using to connect themselves to this WAN does sane things like not spewing SMB out over the wire(less). Besides, you had exactly the same issues recently with enterprising geeks cruising around finding open 802.11 sites and that's hardly killed 802.11.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Ah, much better. Here's the plaintext.
1) I hate the government. Everyone's older than me, and they must be really oppressive or something. And that FBI warning on videocassetes? That's fucking fascist. Duuuuude.
2) Let's soak the rich. I'm not a communist, but let's kill those capitalist dogs. I'm a comfortable middle class liberal, so I think all people should be like me. Death is too good for the rich; life is too precious to be wasted on the poor. But I will make some token gestures of pity, even while trashing the economy that they, most of all, depend on to live.
3) If you disagree with me, you're a censor.
Since I use computers, I feel that society is a giant machine that can be "FIXED" and that problems are only the result of evil and greed, not of fundamental flaws in human nature.
Hmm... well, all I can really suggest for a case this bad is that you go read a book. Any book.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
This is absolutly the future of networking. Wireless topology can be constructed so quickly that the types of networks described in the story will flourish. Already several cities around the world have this type of grass roots movment happening in them. The best part about it is that large corporations really can't do anything to stop them. Hopefully it won't be too long before a central repository for information regarding these growing networks springs to life. The speed at which these networks can grow is truly the most important asspect. I suspect in five years or less these types of systems will be so common that one could visit nearly any city with a population over 50,000 and connect to a network.
Just like the regular internet, but 100 times as slow!! woohoo!
Seriously though, the 'net in general isn't all that bad if you're willing to pay money for a 'real' connection (say a bussness class DSL or something.) It's just that you wankers want to pay $20/mo for unlimited unrestricted access to the net, and that's just not ever going to happen.
And since you can't get it, your solution is to completly replace the net with something 'wireless' (because wireless is way cooler then wired, dispite the fact that it's also way slower, right?). I'm sure you'll save a ton of money that way.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Are you saying a metropolis is not a wide area? Or do you not understand the whole 'subset/superset' relationship?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
the largest Australian metropolitan city of Sydney
Actually Melbourne is the largest city in terms of land area, which is more relevant in this case, although it has a slightly smaller population.
--JQuirke
There are a bunch of other projects like this. Including my own Ashland's Wireless Internet Project (AWIP) http://awip.truffula.net
:) (hence why i started another one...)
Also there's....
http://personaltelco.net
http://seattlewireless.net
http://bawug.org
http://free2air.org
http://consume.net
a lot of these have been mentioned on slashdot before....
They're cool though
-------
"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
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.
- This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along, move along..
Nice work, all you Aussies...
Anyway, who wants to do something like this in Calgary? Not because the 'net's too expensive, but because it's cool.
Any takers? I'm willing to join.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
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!
I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home
If you have 10,000 people with a 11mbps link to a single machine with a 11mbps link to the next town, that network is going to suck period. You have got to have some kind of scaliablity and all-wireless is just not going to do it. Sure, wireless to everyone's house is nice, but trying to do the whole thing above ground is just dumb, and a huge waste.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Most of the internet traficc is cha, email, read gossips or journals, have a little research work...
So if they make a big LAN, contract with some minor isp a connection to the outside net, mirror the most demanding stuff, monitor what people want and change those mirrors, they can have a good biz going on. Matter of fact isn't that what the majors do?
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
In the UK: Consume http://consume.net/
In Seattle: Seattle wireless: http://seattlewireless.net
In New York: NYCWireless: http://nycwireless.net
etc etc.
For more info have a look at FreeNetworks: http://freenetworks.org/
Deleted
does this mean we'll have a "million man wan" now?
Erm... where would that be? I'm paying $50/month for 512kbit/s down and 64kbit/s up here.
A wireless WAN? So what? It's censored anyways.
Yes there is heaps of these organisations around Australia.... this proves how aweful the Australian broadband situation is.
You haven't been a broadband user lately have you? The "competition" is practically non-existent now, telcos won, by:
- Forcefully eliminating real competition (other DSL providers)
- Creating a peaceful duopoly with cable guys
About the only thing left is the competition from third sector, and this project is Yet Another Example of these efforts. Good luck for all involved. I think USA could use this just as much as Australia and probably any other country in the world.And the last paragraph (regarding "thank god") is pure nonsense. Constitution wasn't designed to assure free trade or competition. It's good for many valuable fundamental rights, but it doesn't have clauses for "taxes suck" or "big co's are ho's and need be controlled"
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
1) Well, just about all the 'political' news I hear from down under makes it seem like ignorant rednecks are running the show. Internet and other kinds of censorship, various raciest political parties gaining power, etc
2) Don't get the wrong idea. American is full of rednecks as well, but we have a good system in place to prevent them from fucking things up to bad.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
They're called dorms, ed.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
ok a few pointers, 1 this is an intranet, and all likely hood won't have much if any official direct/indirect internet access as this is a very grey area of the law and the ACA is the likely to stop us any way, however this said, a group in perth have a dsl link to WAIX (western australian Internet eXchange) for local to that location traffic, basicly any ISP/biz linked into that building. Thanks to who ever posted this as the site has recieved an overwhelming response will help trying to convince companies to help sponsor/support our little project. Once we have our first AP up, there will be a testing/meeting day to be announced, so we can all get togeather and really tryout the tech in the area. So stay tuned to http://www.sydneywireless.com for future updates.
I couldn't agree with you more. I consider myself an anarchist, and for that matter, I think open source as a whole is very much in the spirit of anarchy. Call it rainbow software if you will. I'm in the initial steps right now of trying to get a wireless community network project up and running here in Missoula, Montana. I'm going to form a non-profit organization and use that to try for grant funding to speed growth. I want to give everyone who contributes to the network (in either money or bandwidth) a real IP address, and encourage people to host. Sure, we'll have more bandwidth locally than out to the rest of the net, but so bloody what?! We'll create and host some great content right here. I will, at least. ;)
Anyway, peace.
Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
Anyone interested in starting a project like this one in Quebec City?
In fact, looking at the map of the graphical database linked at the top here, for some reason most nodes appear to be just west of Baghdad.
What does it really cost to have that network? The Electric utilities seem to do well with much greater capital investment off less money than the phone company collects from you. Think about it.
Now figure the costs of a wireless network, where the only thing to maintain are a few repeater stations. Oh wait, that's the topic setting up a community owned wireless network to avoid rape by telcos and trolls like you.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
It is still vapour-ware, but by the end of the year I expect to have a web based tool which will allow a user to see a map of a city in a web page, say "here is a good place for a node", click, click, submit.
The data is sent to a database and the presented back to the uses over the web.
Collecting wireless node locations would be an ideal use case.
For more info, check out http://mapbuilder.sourceforge.net.
PS, Any developers who want to help out would be warmly welcomed.
The best beer in the world comes from Belgium.
My personal favourite is Kasteel beer, tied with Westmalle Tripel
An Australian.
---
Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Jedi & Last *-fytr