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Inspiring Adventures in SF Wireless Networking

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the and-you-too-can-be-wirelessly-groovy dept.

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.

10 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Directory of WiFi by NETHED · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I really wish someone would make a definitive database for WiFi locations based on either postings by users or the WiFi equipment owners themselves. I know that there are a few sites, but they, well suck. There needs to be a consentrated effort to do this. I'll gladly share my bandwidth if i know I can borrow someone elses later.

    --
    --sig fault--
  2. 802.11b everywhere by ajiva · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'm waiting for high speed 802.11b access to be everywhere. We should blanket the country with 802.11b, and just provide internet connectivity similar to cell phones. In your "area" you get internet connectivity for $x, if you leave your area it costs some $y. It would kill DSL and Cable, but it would be great for travelers, people too far from CO, etc

    1. Re:802.11b everywhere by saveth · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We should blanket the country with 802.11b

      In Tasmania, a few friends of mine have begun this same sort of thing. The idea is to cover Tasmania with a public access wireless network. More information can be gleaned from their web site, here.

  3. Grrr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I really wish people wouldn't use generic acronyms in story titles. Especially when they use them for their less common meanings. "SF" on the internet generally means Science-Fiction, not San Francisco.

    I've noticed a rash of these in article titles on /. lately.

  4. Cooperative Employer by stealthyburrito · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe it's just me, but this employer seems to be extremely cooperative. I wonder how much convincing he had to do in order to get this project off the ground.

  5. I live line of sight from you by jmorse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I live on Potrero Hill, and can probably do line of sight to your house. I look at Twin Peaks out my living room window. Wanna try a linkup?

    --

    "You done taken a wrong turn."
    -Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
  6. this must be the *real* golden age of wireless by green+pizza · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The early days of radio sound pretty cool... imagine hearing about your neighbor "pulling music out of the air"! Or how about the first radio singers that "were paid to sing into a can [microphone]"?

    I grew up with radio and television... but my friends and I would still string up tincan-and-string communication systems and eventually started moding walkietalkies.

    These days the current generation of youngsters can transmit data at nearly half a megabyte per second with inexpensive electronics, a bit of coax, and a modified pringles can!

    Kinda funny how it all goes back to a can...

  7. Scalability questions using 802.11b as a wan by Indy1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know 802.11 was designed as a wireless drop in replacement /supplimant for traditional ethernet lan's. My question is, what happens if every house and business in America(world) throws up a WAP and a big dish on their roof forming one huge wan across the country. Can 802.11b scale this far (or big enough to handle a good size man - thats metropolitan area network for you non networking types) ? Is there enough bandwidth / frequency allocation in the 802.11 specs? What about packet collisions? Does the spread spectrum nature of 802.11 take care of this if the network was really huge?

    --
    Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
  8. 802.11 risks by Wise+Dragon · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This is from an article on 802.11b.weblogger.com. The gist of is that licensed users of the 2.4Ghz spectrum are allowed to radiate at up to 1.5kw, effectively shutting down 802.11!

    [Dewayne] Hendricks [of the FCC] pointed out a simple case in which hams could shut down an extensive area. "Ham television is becoming more and more popular, the equipment's becoming cheaper; lots of hams like to broadcast," Hendricks said. "It's a pretty sexy application."

    Hendricks said that the San Francisco Bay Area already has a number of ham TV repeaters. "A bunch of hams could deploy TV broadcasts" up to 1.5 kilowatts (kW). "We could effectively shut down 802.11 in the entire Bay Area, and it would be perfectly legal and there wouldn't be anything you could do about it." Part 15 devices like Wi-Fi radios are limited to less than 1 watt (W), and many devices use 30 to 100 milliwatts (mW). (When you start talking about radiated power output, these numbers are only starting points for calculations.)

  9. Re:If they pull the plug... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    yeah, we're already doing this out in toowoomba, australia - a bunch of smaller lans and home users are getting wireless antannas - mainly for games and file sharing.
    we'd like net access, but telstra would probably shoot us for sharing broadband and besides, how to share the cost?
    http://brismesh.org/ is brisbane which has a fairly established wireless network, and http://tolkun.com.au/mesh/ is toowoomba, which is just getting going.
    suprised slashdot hasn't done more stories on it.. it's a perfect environment for setting up a cute little *nix server :)