[PLUG] DelCo Wireless (and maybe Philly Wireless too)

[Chris "Magnus" Hedemark <chrish@trilug.org>]

I'm starting work on my own wireless mesh in DelCo, which may or may 
not coincide with the goals of the existing DelcoWireless project.  In 
any case, DelcoWireless now has a mailing list.

> From:

>

>

> As requested, I have created a discussion list for Delcowireless. To 
> subscribe go to:
> http://mail.airpower.com:82/guest/RemoteListSummary/d_w_talk
> or you can do so by email as airpower takes standard majordomo 
> commands. The list name is d-w_talk. For help with AirPower's list 
> server, email majordomo@airpower.com with the word help in the subject

The mesh network I'm hoping to get started on this summer will start in 
Delaware County primarily because that's where I live and that's where 
I've been able to get several high rooftops to use.

However, from my place in Prospect Park I may have a clear LOS to 
Philadelphia including south Philly & University City.

High level overview of what I intend to do is initially have a series 
of access points running in HostAP mode, all on the same channel, same 
SSID, running IPv6 and OSPF.  Node operators can NAT to IPv4 for their 
local clients if they wish but the AP's themselves would communicate 
with each other using IPv6.  I'm hoping for some early adopters that 
are willing to spend the extra to set up not only the omnidirectional 
antennas for their own local coverage, but also one or two directional 
antennas to set up long haul links.  I'm looking at probably running 
Pebble Linux (Debian offshoot) on Soekris boards for the early access 
points, and then something like OpenAP or LinuxAP on cheap commodity 
hardware for the stripped down omnidirectional access points to come 
later on.

I've had an easy time of getting rooftop access in Delaware County so 
provided there are people willing to buy hardware for this, we should 
be able to make a go of it down this way.  I've also been approached by 
some IPv6 evangelists who are willing to help in various respects.

What I need more immediately is people who are willing to put some $$$ 
into setting up the initial backbone.  I don't expect hardware costs to 
exceed $1,000 and in fact I expect they will be less than this.  I'm 
also working on cheaper access points that are stripped down and can 
only handle one good omnidirectional antenna for under $500 (maybe less 
still).

The primary lure of this is not free internet.  The lure of this is 
having high speed network coverage blanketing parts of Philadelphia, 
Delaware County, and other local counties.  Node operators may, 
however, choose to give or sell Internet access from their nodes (node 
operators should not, however, charge for access to the mesh itself).  
This can be a real boon for file sharing, gaming, and other high 
bandwidth applications.  Initially we would be on 802.11b on the omnis 
(because of the availability of drivers for all OS's on that standard) 
but backbone links may use 802.11a (or g) for now with an eye on 
emerging technologies like 802.16 in the future.

Who's game?

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