Cringely's Bank Shot

Michael A. Lowry writes: "You may remember how Robert Cringely used a couple of directional antennas to get an 802.11b link up across a 10.5 km wide valley. The original Slashdot discussion is here. Well Cringely has done it again. This time, he has set up a passive repeater in an oak tree on a nearby mountaintop to bounce a 2 Mb/s signal around a hill that lies between his house and the acces point in Santa Rosa. Read about it here. Details about the homemade hardware he used can be found here. There's going to be a lot more of this in the near future."

Comments

Off the tree around the hill...

[esw]

...nothing but net.
:-)

~Eric

Tragedy of the commons

[Waffle Iron]

Let's say thousands of people do this in some general area to save a buck or two on broadband. Even with directional antennas, the noise floor could get pretty high. How much bandwidth will any one person have left?

Re:Tragedy of the commons

[Anixamander]

I can't see folks going to this extent on a widespread basis. If thousands of people in one area do start doing this, it will no doubt become the new Silicon Valley, because it would mean there is a critical mass of sophisticated geeks there.

Make that sophisticated, motivated geeks. I'm sophisticated, but that is way too mch work for me.

Re:Tragedy of the commons

[haruharaharu]

If you are thinking of experimenting with your wireless equipment be aware of the FCC regulations

That's what 2.4Ghz is for - keep it under 250mw and you're fine.

Re:Tragedy of the commons

[Mike Hicks]

How much bandwidth will any one person have left?

Heh, a lot more than they have now.

Wireless is good.

[digitalunity]

I live in an area where if you are outside of a very small boundary, you cannot get high speed bandwidth regarless of what you're willing to pay. Some get satellite, the rest(majority) are forced to suffer with dialup.

This would be a big boon for us. I hope a clever company picks up the ball and runs with this.

What I see

[talonyx]

People want wireless access ANYWHERE.

I want it while I sit on the bus commuting to university. I want it when I'm relaxing at my friend's house. I want it when I'm sitting in my bathroom dumping core.

And no company is going to give this to us.

I want it unmetered. I don't mind paying a flat rate but I'm not going to sit in the dark ages of per minute cell phone charges. That would be useless.

And no company is going to do that, either.

So we all have to be like Cringely....

I already have a WAP in my house, albeit a low power one. Come summertime I might buy an antenna for it so I can get a decent connection when outside in my large property.

Imagine if everybody did this. Imagine if half the houses on your street had a WAP with the SSID set to something like "freewire" or something, seamlessly providing wireless access wherever you go via people's boradband links.

NAN - neighbourhood area network.

Now if only I didn't live in outer suburbia where my neighbours have never heard of the Internet and houses are too far apart to make this worthwhile...

Grain elevators

[client32]

I know this isn't the same, but where I live there is a company getting wireless broadband to rural towns by putting atennas and transmitters on the top of grain elevators. This works out pretty good since the terrane is flat and you can see another elevator from the top of your current one. I don't know how much area they cover, but it seems to be an interesting solution.

Violation of TOS

[swordboy]

Cringely mentions that he is indeed violating the DSL provider's TOS but doesn't think that he can be caught. What is to stop the DSL provider from TCP/IP fingerprinting his router and terminating service?

Re:Violation of TOS

[Wildcat J]

Hell, what's to stop the DSL provider from reading the article? ;)

Re:Violation of TOS

[rick446]

Because Cringely doesn't have DSL service. He's piggybacking on someone else's service. So there's no traceability to Cringely unless his middleman says something.

Re:Violation of TOS

[interiot]

Cringely could probably be identified if someone wanted to try badly enough. For instance, he probably connects to *.pbs.org fairly often, trailed closely by slashdot.org and internet searches for ultra-wide-band related things.

Granted, that'd take a lot of work, but given the extent to which Cringely is encouraging others to emulate him and cause ISP's everywhere (and his ISP in particular, perhaps maybe even) grief, there might be people who would invest the time.

Cringely earns the title "hacker"...

[dstone]

...in my book for that stunt. Yeah, he's full of wind and lofty opinions and predictions. But it takes a proper hacker to roll up the sleeves, climb a mountain and a big tree, simply to install a wireless hack.

He da man.

Need for product durability and stability

[Bonker]

When construction begins in a populated area, utility companies, including telco and cable operators, are responsible for coming out and flagging their under-ground wires, pipes, conduits, repeaters, and switch boxes.

A lot of amature 802.11b hackers are building a utility infrastructure, wether they think they are or not and even if it's for their own private use.

In the VERY near future, wireless devices like this are going to have to become *very* durable to stand up to long-term outdoor use... and I don't mean having a water-tight battery compartment. A lot of the stuff out there... Pringle Can antennas, anyone?... is homerolled hacks.

Things like wireless routers and repeaters, however, need to be designed with things like natural disaster, wild animals, and vandalism in mind.

Ever wonder why public utility stuff is so bulky and hard to get into?

Re:Need for product durability and stability

[GoRK]

Have you ever seen BreezeCom (now alvarion) radios? They are built like a tank. I dropped one off a tower once (~20ft) onto concrete and it was fine.

The other solution is just to put all your stuff inside an enclosure with whatever NEMA rating your environment requires. Add a heat exchanger and UPS in there and you have a nice sealed up shielded box that's good to contain about any piece of computing equipment you want.

Wireless will scale...if done right

[pridefinger]

I work for a company that will be hosting an access point for an isp. In return we get a reduced rate on the bandwidth that we purchased (DS3). I live not too far from work/the access point and will be given free service (not relevant, but cool anyway :)).

The reason this company's solution just might work is this: They are installing multiple access points at businesses in my area. Each tranceiver (yes, everyone's antennae both receives and transmits the network signal, widening the effective range) that is brought online is assigned to a specific access point. As bandwidth starts to saturate a given access point, a new access point is to be brought online by splitting the cost with a business that will play host. That just may be what is needed to make wireless work, instead of becoming a choked alternative to 56k.

Just maybe it will make high bandwidth available to the poor saps (myself included) that can't get dsl or cable.

-Pride

This is what the term Hacker was invented for

[the_rev_matt]

Here's a fine example of someone going out and doing something positive and high profile that takes back the term Hacker and makes it praise instead of critique.

Mo' power, Cringe.

Later this month...

[maggard]

Later this month Bob will connect into NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System using a "Amana Radar Range" microwave oven and 100 meters of Cat 5 cable.

On "This Old Geek hosted by McGyver" Feb 29th (not availiable on all PBS stations, ask your parents for permission first.)

Cringely Icon, Please

[ekrout]

We'd like a Cringely icon, please, to go along with his own section.

You can perform a simple search to see just how many times his material has been posted as a new story on the front of Slashdot.

He's not a God, but he's damn close. His articles are almost always interesting and sometimes he even manages to produce original ideas that are quite captivating.

I don't think I'm the first one to suggest this, either...

Re:Cringely Icon, Please

[Enry]

I'd certainly rather have him pontificating on /. than Katz. At least Cringley knows that Afghans can't view Divx movies on their C-64s.

Doesn't work

[SiriusBlack]

Has Cringely read this article which basically says the hack he's using to increase his Linksys WAP11 power output DOES NOT WORK?

Re:How is he powering this setup?

[rcw-work]

I'm curious as to how he's powering this setup.

It's passive. No power needed. Basically, a wave received from one antenna will travel down a transmission line to an antenna connected at the other end and radiate out (and vice versa) with very little loss.

Re:I'm seriously tempted to try something like thi

[danielrose]

No satellite access because the house is surrounded by trees and blocks the signal.

Enter the chainsaw! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

More snack food

[gnatware]

In the 70's it was Cap'n Crunch, now it's Pringles. Odds are P&G will soon be modifying the design of their "snack" packaging to make sure that 2.4 GHz waves can't use 'em.

Re:Emissions?

[afidel]

For the unliscensed use of the ISM band at 2.4Ghz you are not allowed to exceed 1W radiated power. This means that a 100mW radio connected directly to a 24Dbi dish antenna is actually too powerfull. This is ok because most people who use a dish with that kind of gain put it up on a pole. Using even really freaking expensive cable you lose a couple Dbi per meter of cabling.

Still 10 years to my access

[blackdropbear]

Now all I have to do is grow the tree to bounce the signal off.

Re:How flat is flat?

[Gaijin42]

Why is bandwidth expensive :

A) Because the fiber cost several hundred million dollars to lay down. The ownser of the companies that laid the fiber would like to recoup their investment (and eventually make a profit) before they die.

B) Bandwidth is a limited commodity. There are only so many bits that can travel at any given moment. Most of the time we are not at maximum capacity on a large scale, but occasionally it happens (9/11 when everyone in the world was going to cnn every 30 seconds). However locally, or regionally you can get a bottleneck quite often.

Supply is exceeded by demand, so the price goes up until people dont want to pay anymore.

Re:I'm seriously tempted to try something like thi

[david duncan scott]

Everyone around us gets this stuff but we can't.

Say, didn't you sit in front of me in algebra?

When the ISPs all start blocking P2P....

[Mr. Neutron]

Ultimately the Internet is going to become useless, taken over by AOL/Time-Warner and a handful of other major providers, all in control of Big Media. At that time, we'll need to set up our own nationwide, underground, wireless IP network. And it's ideas like this that are going to make it work. Here's how:

We start with neighborhood wireless LANs. A few WAPs on the block, and forthcoming wireless technology will allow the WAPs to uplink to one another. It's not all that different from the old BBS, except that it's over the airwaves, rather than over the phone, the bandwidth is about 1000x better, and it's completely public.

Then we get some Cringely-esque techniques in place to route between different neighborhood LANs. Set an IP router in front of several microwave links to other IP routers, each in a nearby town/neighborhood. This would be like a wireless version of the old FidoNet.

If we can get the whole nation connected, we can then have P2P-paradise that the Media companies can't touch. Well, except that bandwidth would suck, and it would be able to scale for anything. Only, I'm looking at 5 or 10 years down the road, after technology has taken a few leaps forward.

And, you could have access to this network virtually anywhere you can take an 802.11 device. And don't get me started on the Voice-over-IP possibilities.

That would *rule*.

Watch out for falling objects....

[d-ude]

...when your co-workers are installing 802.11b equipment above you. Here's a link to a page I put up that has a video clip of what almost happened to us when a wrench was dropped from 150ft. on a tower.

The Unwired

Re:I hate to rain on Mr Cringely's parade, but...

[gmhowell]

I thought that even his boosted signal was low enough to be considered unregulated. At that point, there is no FCC guidelines concerning interference. Were he using a 10 watt transmitter, he WOULD be regulated because he might interfere.

The danger of using anything in the unregulated area is that you might get hosed by other unregulated users. If you need the reliability/durability/security, you have to pay for it.

Re:I hate to rain on Mr Cringely's parade, but...

[prockcore]

You're the type of person who calls the cops on the local pirate radio station, aren't you?

Re: I hate to rain on Mr Cringely's parade, but...

[InitZero]

For those moderators not paying attention, the parent post is an obvious troll.

This is precisely why we need the FCC to regulate people's use of this equipment.

Cringely's setup is regulated by the FCC and is within FCC specifications. There is nothing illegal (as far as the FCC is concerned) here.

Did Bob Cringely ask a single person living in downtown what they thought of his terrific internet access plan?

Why would he? Does the neighborhood get a vote every time someone turns on a cell phone? What about when a ham radio operator fires up his 1,500 watt amp? What about when someone turns on a microwave oven?

What about the those people who use approved wireless equipment (phones, wireless networking) and now have to deal with the background noise

Cringely was using an FCC type-accepted device well within its specifications. Did you miss that part of his article?

coming from his souped up repeater?

His 'souped up repeater', as you call it, is a couple of antennas back to back. It's passive. His antennas don't put out power, they just focus the energy. With 18db of gain, his 100mw signal is still under five effective watts.

Wait, I'm sure he did a thorough study of his setup to make sure that it didn't interfere with transmissions by public safety agencies, right?

Dude, take a basic radio class. He isn't changing the operational frequency. He isn't using an illegal amp that might cause out of band splatter. His third order distortion won't be affected by a passive antenna. There is harmless.

What stopped him from using a 10 watt transmitter, so that the connection would be even faster?

If he had a ham radio license, he could legally run up to 1,500 watts of power, operate an active repeater and use whatever antenna array he wanted all in the same frequency range he is using now. As an added bonus, he still wouldn't have to fill out any paperwork, get any government approval or take a poll of his neighbors.

Follow the rules and don't subject other people to your homebrewed technology.

Once again, other than unlawful use of a tree for the purposes of geekness, I he hasn't broken any rules.

If you want to learn something about radio (and, trust me, you're really ignorant now), why not surf on over to the American Radio Relay League. They represent hams across the world. They have some very good teaching materials. If you study hard, maybe you can even get a ham license. It really is pretty nifty.

InitZero

You get together and create a coherent network....

[Colin Smith]

Rather than competing, all you have to do is co-operate.

http://www.freenetworks.org/

The more the merrier. :)

Bad laptop antenna's + repeater

[j3110]

I've done some work myself on making a passive repeater for other purposes. I've found that even duct-taping a copper circle of one wave length onto my usb wireless adapter for my laptop will improve link quality more than 10% when you go through a few obstacles. I've been lazy, but if you want to do something pretty cool build a directional antenna (any with good gain) and run the cable to a copper circle of length 11.168cm(Ch 6) (don't connect the ends to each other, just to the coaxial cable). This should give you much better gain and distance on your laptop :) you could build the double quad antenna (double the wave length in length, looks like and you connect the coax to the center such that it ends up being two stacked quads), and it would give you at least 3db gain more than a single quad and be omnidirectional so you can move your laptop around :) There are lots of documentation on how to build these antenna's. Build a couple and connect them to each other and viola, you've got a passive repeater.

Catch up at the back there.

[Colin Smith]

http://www.freenetworks.org/

+Cringley -Katz

[Ledge]

How bout /. gets some negotiations going to swap Katz for Cringely with PBS. Sounds like a hell of a trade. At least I can get through an entire Cringely article without getting the dry heaves.

10.5km bah - try 14.6km's at 11Mbps

[CRC'99]

I'm part of the crew at www.wireless.org.au - and we've been doing some distance testing on standard 11Mbps 802.11 equipment.

We successfully negotiated a link at 11Mbps over 14.6km and are trying to go for 36.5km when time allows.

check out the quick post at http://www.wireless.org.au/stories.php?story=02/02 /07/4863496 regarding this.

Re:Good Cringely

[Z4rd0Z]

You missed the end of the article where he says this whole thing was just an experiment, and he plans to go back to his old service until he can find a way to make it legit.

Someone take the aerial hostage!

[wackybrit]

A free cookie to whoever finds the aerial, steals it, takes pictures of it and sends a ransom note to Cringley. Come on, you know you want to. A great project for a bored geek in his area.. FAME AND FORTUNE AWAIT!

Wireless could be the way out of bandwidth hell...

[retro128]

I myself live in a bandwidth black hole which I just happen to be in the center of. So, I actually started researching and buying gear to hook into work's T1, which is about 4.8 miles away. The gear I decided on was two Orinoco (or WaveLAN as they used to be called) cards with Linux boxes to match to keep costs down (besides, Linux makes for a great wireless router). My antennas are 24dBi gain Hyperlink parabolic grid antennas. I already have the cards working in my Linux installations and am ready to hook up the antennas soon. The only tricky part is that my path to work is slightly obscured so I'm hoping I have enough power and gain to be able to punch though. Hopefully the bandwidth gods will look favorably upon me. I've never had a high speed connect at home (and probably never will if this doesn't work :/)

One of the coolest projects I found while researching this was the HPWREN project at UCSD. Check out their pictures, it's hella cool. In a nutshell they are running a 45Mbps (802.11a) wireless backbone across the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve using mostly off-the-shelf equipment, for the purpose of hooking together the facilities strewn across it. They even have remote cameras hooked in that can be remotely controlled through the network, and other testing stations that send data back to them in realtime.
I dropped an email to the project lead and I asked him what kind of gear they used. He said they used a Western Multiplex Tsunami for their backend, Hyperlink for their antennas and WaveLAN and Cisco Aironet for their PCMCIA cards (you can now see how I constructed my parts list :)) I also asked how he got around mountains and such.
Well, in certain places they have powered relay stations. Naturally I wondered how they were powered, and he said some of them they could get electricity to, but others they actually have solar panels powering the relays. Damn. For you real hackers he mentioned there was a parts list for the solar power array somewhere on the website, but I never bothered to try and find it.

I've noticed some arguments regarding amplifying 802.11, and thought I'd help clear it up. FCC Part 15.247 governs the unlicensed ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) band, and dictates that you can amplify the signal up to 1 watt (1000mw) This gets tricky when you start using directional antennas >6dBi gain though. You may find more detailed info here..

What do you me HE's at it again?

[damieng]

Infoworld's "I Cringely" column has been written by different people under that pseudonym. Do we know who is actually doing this?

One of the previous columnists - Mark Stephens - has been using the names for books (Accidental Empires) and tv (Nerds series). There have been at least two more Bob Cringely's since him in Infoworld.

More info at: http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/summer96/0088.htm l

[)amien

Re:How flat is flat?

[jareds]

you have trouble understanding concepts that are either new, or outside your comfort bubble. Basically, all flame-bait and no value.

End Of Line. PLEASE MODERATE.

With all due respect, you should at least consider the possibility that your argument could be more clear. Immediately ending a discussion because someone needs clarification is rude, and would seem to indicate an unwillingness to subject your point to debate.

you believe I am wrong, even if my assertions are true;

The argument I was trying to make outlined relatively clearly:

• Second, the complaints you make do not show a problem with economics, even if they are true. You allege that people are making bad business decisions, but if your points are correct, neoclassical economic theory would agree that these decisions are bad.

However, unlike you, I'm willing to clarify. You argue that we need a new form of economics. Your argument is that currently business decisions are being made that are obviously bad, that these decisions are supported by economics, and therefore economics is bad. I am agreeing that at least some bad decisions probably are being made, but I can in any case just stipulate that all your points about bad decisions are true, because I am arguing that these bad decisions are not supported by economics. If they aren't, we don't need "Quantum Economics." This is all I am trying to argue.

My first claim, that your post had no relation to its parent, was just dumb. Sorry.

I see now that you interpreted the statement in the parent about 100% loss incorrectly, and attributed it to 19th-century economics. When that post said the "unsold bandwidth is a 100% loss," that didn't literally mean that it would be recorded as a loss on the balance sheet, any more than I could claim a $100,000 business loss on my taxes if I try to sell a banana for that amount, but it goes unsold and becomes spoiled and I throw it away. Now THAT would be voodoo economics :) All I lose is the cost of producing the banana. There is nothing in economics that says otherwise. However, you seem to think that there is, because you say that multiplying the bandwidth must multiply the loss (that is, you say that economics says that). By analogy, suppose I had a device that produced 10 bananas per minute ex nihilio. If I can upgrade the machine for $1000 to produce a million bananas per minute, I would do so as a rational economic agent as long I can recoup the $1000. The value of excess bananas that might spoil is of no concern. I believe the burden is on you to show why any economics, even from the 19th century, would have me do otherwise.

I hope this accurately represented your argument.