5 Cool Wireless Reseach Projects

Bob B writes "Including an effort by MIT researchers to exploit dense urban networks of existing Wi-Fi access points to create municipal wireless networks rather than relying on EarthLink and cities to fund and build such wireless projects. Secure tunneling is the secret sauce for making it work and not making wireless AP owners liable for miscreants who might use the bandwidth, the researchers say."

Comments

ISP EULAs

[nurb432]

This might ( most likely does ) violate most any ISP's eula. That also has to be dealt with as they want their cut too.

Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs

[compumike]

The first project they discuss is using everyone's existing access points to effectively form a municipal wifi network. The paper linked from the article talks a lot about the security concerns, etc. It's an interesting concept, and I've thought about trying to use the fairly dense wifi network access outdoors in an effort to move data (GPS, etc) between my vehicle and my home.

However, based on my experience with wifi, there seem to be one major problem here: interference effects. I already have problems that I can see about 6 different access points from my desk... on four different networks and SSIDs. The 802.11 spec only allows for three non-overlapping channels (in the US frequency bands, anyway). This problem gets worse as the capacity utilization factor approaches 100%, as it's more and more likely that two packets will happen to collide. This might be a huge problem for this kind of large-scale wifi, as 802.11b/g isn't really designed to operate well when you can see so many APs at once.

In any case, I wonder if they're also overestimating the infrastructure deployment costs. One of the most amazing things to me was how, within a decade, everyone suddenly had wireless in their home and workplace. In fact, in urban areas, it wouldn't surprise me if there were 1 private access point for every 10 or 20 people. People aren't afraid to pay to get cool technology -- although it's a bit different when the government does it.

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Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Re:Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs

[UltraMathMan]

Seconded, I volunteer at a small elementary school with a one to one laptop program just a couple blocks from a major university, and interference effects are becoming more and more of a problem. Last I counted I could see something like 15-20 APs in one of the classrooms, and while sitting on the school's wireless network in that room you are guaranteed to lose all signal at least once an hour. This is obviously a problem, but moreover a dropped connection when using one of the network based programs (such as FASTT Math) results in the user being knocked out of that program, right now I don't see this technology being employed easily in a wifi dense setting until this problem of interference is dealt with.

Re:Municipal Wireless using existing (private) APs

[mpeg4codec]

It's an interesting concept, and I've thought about trying to use the fairly dense wifi network access outdoors in an effort to move data (GPS, etc) between my vehicle and my home.

You may be interested in this gentleman's setup. It's somewhat light on details, but it proves that it definitely can be done.

Reseach projects...

[jalet]

Are they related to spelling checkers ?

Re:Downside?

[antifoidulus]

Dude, if you are checking your email with bittorrent, you are doing it wrong.

FON wireless

[subitophoto]

Sharing wireless look what these guys have done. http://www.fon.com/en/