| gabriel rosenkoetter on Wed, 11 Jun 2003 19:20:46 -0400 |
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On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 02:27:35PM -0400, Chris Magnus Hedemark wrote:
> OK so I have to ask... any chance of the college scraping together some
> $$$ for their own AP's? Locations are great to have, but useless
> without hardware after all.
That'd be a question for Them.
You might want to be a bit glossy about the presentation and have
some of the mesh extant before you go run it by Marc and Adam (I'll
send you their contact info privately; I figure first name are safe,
and it might actually get the latter's attention).
> And with the Strath Haven condos, well, if anyone who lives there is
> interested it would be worthwhile but that's not one I'm personally
> inclined to chase down. We do have to address the matter of who buys
> what hardware, after all.
My understanding is that the college put in a T1 for Strath Haven a
school year or two ago. They use that top floor as overflow housing,
and until the T went in, the kids there were using the college's
dial up pool (whether they got a kick back on the portion of their
tuition that went towards the college's Internet access was never
clear, but my guess is that they didn't; the tradeoff was a private
bathroom and kitchen).
My guess is that if that's still the best connectivity they've got,
the college may well be in favor of jumping in. Cisco VPN, which
those kids use to get to file servers from "home", over a decent-
speed wireless mesh far beats Cisco VPN over a 1.5 Mbps line.
> Crazy idea but do-able: Your apartment is not far from Michael's. I
> wonder if the various property managers in that row of buildings would
> object to some CAT 5 strung from your unit to Michael's roof, with an
> omni over Michael's, to provide a better placed antenna over the
> downtown area.
Theoretically feasible. But, as I said, I stop knowing owners with
Renato Pizza, and even that's a stretch. (I *know* Nick, but he's
never gotten an invite to a party at my place.)
We've got better hope with the next door place (over Occasionally
Yours) on the corner closest to the trainstation on Park. That'd get
around the Michael's roof problem, and *may* get around the 101
problem too.
Are you thinking along the repeater-down-the-tracks line or the
wifi-while-waiting-for-a-train line?
> I think one omni placed there could serve the
> intersecting streets there pretty well, the train station for sure, and
> possibly as far as the library if there were good antennas on both ends
> and LOS (not sure if there are any trees blocking the two rooftops
> there).
You're safe on trees, but I think you get better coverage of the
business district on the Park side from my place. Not so much with
the Chester side, but there's not much space to park there. My place
(or Occasionally Yours) can hit the porches on the back of the
Shirer Building (the big one next to the PNC at the corner of
Chester and Rutgers) better; Michael's would run into the radio
shadow problem from the building across the alley from the Shirer.
(I type this from my back porch--where the wifi works just fine as
it is, thanks ;^>--looking at the situation.)
Also, the Shirer building's attractive (you're not getting the roof;
that's Pasutszek, don't even bother unless you want to pay for the
privilege) on the Swarthmore College slant, since it's about half-
populated by college kids during any given year.
> point on your own roof. All of that is contingent on the property
> managers agreeing to it, but I see this as one of those public service
> things that can only increase their property value (if anything) :)
That'd be a hard sell in certain cases. I'm confident of my place
and the building on either side.
Oh, hey, wait, the one farther towards Chester than Renato's is a
totally safe bet, actually. That's Alan (again, first name only in
public), whose contact info I'll send you as well. He's the lawyer
who runs e4n6 ("ee-for-en-sics", get it?), and is already totally
into the idea of a mesh. You're likely to get a fair amount of help
with organization and publicity from him too, something I don't
really have the energy for. (Nothing personal, but there's other
stuff that's more interesting to me. I'll obviously take part, but
the organizing is more stress I don't need right now. :^>)
--
gabriel rosenkoetter
gr@eclipsed.net
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