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Buy Broadband From Your Neighbor

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the at-once-separate-and-the-same dept.

infractor writes "Wired has an article about a wireless project delivering free broadband to a rural community. Using Linux based devices called meshboxes from Locustworld, they've created a local mesh network. More detail in this article. With Wi-Fi friendly ISPs talking about micro-ISP deals for wireless sharers this could be the accelerator UK broadband has been waiting for." Last year we mentioned the MeshAP-05, a bootable CD which "turns a single board computer or laptop into a mesh node and access point," since updated to MeshAP-06. Update: 02/13 19:52 GMT by T : I see from comments that -08 is actually the current version of MeshAP, with -09 soon. Thanks.

2 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Clarification by cybe · · Score: 5, Informative


    The current version available for download is actually v8, with a major release in v9 imminent.

    The newer builds are so far only for read-write media such as a hard drive or (as in the case of the hardware MeshBox) a CompactFlash card.

    There is a lot of activity on the mailing list, and I recommend anyone interested in participating to subscribe.

    / David H

  2. Re:What is the range? by grid+geek · · Score: 4, Informative

    Stanford had a guest lecture a couple of weeks ago from a group setting up a wireless network in Laos.

    It's intended to connect about 5 villages with a town (the town has telephone lines to the rest of the world) on the other side of a hill/mountain. It allows them video conferencing with the rest of the world as they are using a verbal only language - so keyboards aren't much use. The gear is all battery powered, recharged using a modified exercise bike. They installed it a couple of weeks ago and are getting a couple of miles with it.

    I seem to remember a couple of articles a few months ago about some academics managing to get about 20-50 miles with wireless over water - this of course is an idealised example as there are few areas that flat on land. And of course rain can screw up your signals a lot.