[MLB-WIRELESS] Fwd: [mesh] WOAH!

[Tony Langdon]

> Seconded - I already have wireless 'net access, and several 
> people from
> melb-wireless have already seen it in action - and I have the
> infrastructure in place to provide a head-start on building something
> more involved.  I'm also stirring as hard as I can to get links up

Similar here.  My setup backs onto a LAN with a couple of Linux boxes, IPv6
support and all sorts of goodies...

> around me - and we've had some success already.  My big problem atm is
> I'm in a <chorus>basin surrounded by trees</chorus>, so I don't expect
> to see myself connected to this stuff in a big hurry - but I'm buying
> poles and antennas and suchlike, just in case ;).

I'm in a hole surrounded by 2 storey houses, and nowhere to shove a pole up.
:-/  Guess we're in much the same boat. :)

> It just strikes me that _every_ person I've talked to about 
> wireless has
> started with "so, you could get the net anywhere".  Without 
> discounting
> the strength of a locally-oriented network, Internet access 
> seems to be
> driving quite a few people, one way or another.  Hell, perhaps
> low-bandwidth, shoddy Internet access might be just enough to 
> tip one or
> two people over into actually doing something.

Maybe it might, maybe not.  I dunno, when you look at the practicalities.
For me "Internet anywhere" means "around the backyard", and I can already do
that with my current setup.  And the speed of broadband is there behing it.
Where I see the advantages is in being able to bypass slow modems (pt-pt
wireless) of other users, or bypass data caps for commonly requested files
(I'd be happy to pull down an ISO a month of a Linux distro to add to
"shared resources" - that's all I could manage with what excess bandwidth
I'm likely to have once the cap is in place :/).  If we all pull down bits,
we'll have a nice repositry that doesn't eat up our broadband data allowance
or take forever over a sluggish modem. :)

Roll on ftp.community.melb.wireless.org.au
:)

> > Well, I have the bits too...  Just need an accessible node. :)
> 
> I have a node, but it's in a shoddy location.  I _am_ doing my best to
> get others up this way connected, in the hopes something bigger will
> happen.  But I'm not going to blind myself to the idea of carrying
> commercial traffic across the network just because it doesn't look
> viable yet - and there's a bunch of really interesting 
> puzzles to solve
> in making that happen, that I wanna be involved with.

Well, I feel commercial traffic does open a few can of worms.  Firstly, the
legal issues would have to be spelt out (we're not out to provide a 99.999%
availability service - if you lose money using us... TOUGH - you should have
paid for a real commercial grade connection!), and there's the
accounting/billing side.

Carrying commercial traffic also opens up room for abuse.  Look at the crap
that goes across the Internet these days.  We will want some very good
systems in place to be able to squash offenders at the first sign of abuse
(I'm not in this to receive even more spam!).

> I also believe, incidentally, that the infrastructure to count traffic
> for bringing Internet access onto a community mesh can be re-applied
> elsewhere, by others that want resource counting and/or billing.  I
> don't know who those might be yet - my guesses would be community
> fundraising of some sort, individuals that want to provide 
> some form of
> resource to people they like, and general network monitoring 
> in terms of
> usage of various links in the mesh - finding hotspots, etc.  So it's
> more than just "lets charge for bytes", it's a generic "how do we deal
> with resource management on a community network".

This side could be very beneficial.  Agreed there.
> 
> I will agree that we need to spend more time building the 
> network first
> - but I don't see that throwing this stuff out completely is 
> worthwhile.
> 
> Anyway, I'll shut up again now.

:-)

Probably a "Let's look when we can - we have a network to build"
proposition. :)

This correspondence is for the named person’s use only. It may contain
confidential or legally privileged information or both. No confidentiality
or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this
correspondence in error, please immediately delete it from your system and
notify the sender. You must not disclose, copy or rely on any part of this
correspondence if you are not the intended recipient.

Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the individual sender.


To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at wireless.org.au
with "unsubscribe melbwireless" in the body of the message