Wireless Community Summit Tackles Digital Divide

jens writes "More than 150 participants (including Matt Westervelt, Seattle Wireless) from 30 countries will discuss on how to overcome the digital divide building wireless community networks. The freifunk.net summer convention 2004 takes place from 3rd to 10th September in Djursland, Denmark. The convention's location is well chosen -- DjurslandS.net (in Danish) itself is probably the most ambitious wireless community network of the world. About 200 volunteers installed more than 100 masts on the remote area's 32 000 sq mi. Using the wireless standards 802.11a/b/g about 1'500 households enjoy a symmetric 1-2 MBit internet connection via WI-FI (the WI-FI network has 8 direct uplinks to the danish backbone and several DSL fallbacks). The wireless4development track organized by wire.less.dk will show other projects how to follow the DjurslandS.net example. The convention starts off with a 3 day program including VoIP, development for the meshcube and antenna building and finishes off with a 5 day hands-on workshop."

Comments

Speakeasy allows WiFi Sharing

[sunilonline]

SpeakEasy DSL has a program called Wifi Netshare which allows you to share/resell your internet access.

I am not affiliated with nor am I a customer of Speakeasy...

Re:Switch Theory

[gabbarbhai]

This might be slightly off-topic.
802.11h takes care of some of that: Includes dynamic frequency selection and control over transmitter power, thought the emphasis is on reducing interference.
802.15 would be another standard to look at in this context.
Someone like Qualcomm or Nokia needs to speed up development of a chip that handles multiple standards. I know, that'd be bad for their stock prices, but still..

the meshcube is too expensive

[WormholeFiend]

the meshcube was deemed too expensive by the /. crowd, IIRC...

how about the waysmall 200ax-bt instead?

Re:Pringles - Available in Denmark?

[erick99]

Here is a link to the "cantenna." I've heard it works quite well. The article provides to links to other sites for similar projects.

Cheers,

Erick

Re:Pringles - Available in Denmark?

[wjames]

http://www.speakeasy.net/ They provide DSL service that allows sharing the connection with your neighbors (And they'll even help you bill your neighbors!). On another note, Check out the WRT54G made by Linksys and get the sveasoft firmware for it with some aftermarket antennas, Works great!

Re:Switch Theory

[geomon]

By the way, the digital divide is a social problem - it is unlikely to be solved simply by applying technology.

Agreed. There are places in Arizona and New Mexico that still do not have land-line telephone coverage. Granted, some of that is due to the lack of substantial penetration of technology into traditional communities (i.e., they LIKE being disconnected from modernity).

Re:Pringles - Available in Denmark?

[bill_mcgonigle]

So, do people have links to cheap antenna sales locations and/or directions for build-your-own?

There's no point in building your own antennas anymore, good ones are available for less than the cost of most access points.