Inspiring Adventures in SF Wireless Networking

JimDog writes "Here's a description I wrote of how I set up a point-to-point 802.11b link over 3.5 miles for Internet access at my house. The link runs at 3.5 Mbps, which I barely make a dent in, and I'd like to offer the rest of the bandwidth to anyone who's got line-of-sight to my location in San Francisco." The great thing about this story is both his terrific exposure to different parts of city and his willingness to share. It also makes it clear just how easy it is to set up a long distance link.

Comments

For your safety...

[isaac]

For your own safety, and your employer's, you really need to install proper lightning arrestors on your outdoor antennas, or you could be in a world of hurt (and liability) if a fire starts in your house or your employer's building as a result of a strike.

(I also question the wisdom of allowing outsiders on your employer's network, since you never know what kind of illegal activities the random users might be up to. Your employer says everything's cool, though so he's probably assumed this risk.)

Just be careful.

-Isaac

Crackdown by ISPs

[bluegreenone]

One thing I'm surprised that doesn't get mentioned more is the expected response of ISPs to people re-distributing their bandwidth to strangers via wireless. As this becomes more common I think you can count on telecos at the very least preventing customers from sharing bandwidth with the general public with their service agreements. The more people that share a connection the fewer customers telecos will have. Imagine the response from a cable company if someone started sharing their cable TV via wireless!

Expect a response soon from the big ISPs. Wireless is currently in the phase that MP3 sharing was in its infancy, too small a blip to register much. But it will attract attention as more people do this. I wouldn't be surprised to see them even getting laws or FCC regulations that prevent wireless sharing.