Dan,
Interesting. I as well was thinking of a public WIFI network around the
city after reading the Classif WIRELESS HACKS book one day in chapters.
There are already lots of open ports but most people don't recognize
they are open to the world.
One possibility would be to follow suit with other free wireless
projects like http://socalfreenet.org/ and add the FREENET philosophy.
This would have an allinged philosophy of universal access to the
Internet. The basic premis is FREE ACCESS like http://www.ilesansfil.org.
So a few months ago I approached NCF.ca to see if I had an audience. No
Response yet, but perhaps I will follow up with them. The reason I was
thinking this route is that they now offer DSL service to the home.
Their policy allows and somewhat encourages their users to share their
networkwork connection and setup servers. A static IP only costs an
additional $10/month. So with WIFI this would add another way for people
to connect.
This way we have a compatible backbone for the wireless network and
don't have to worryr about some ISP's rasing a stink for not reading the
fine print on sharing connections and servers. I am only familiar with
Sympatico and they make servers a challenge and are unclear as to
sharing network connections. We also have an audience being other
Freenet users and could easily setp a SIG and webspace to support the
project. WIFI Capture Portals could be configured to either allow access
by NCF users or seprate hotsport users. Plenty of options.
With affordable internet that uses an open polic like NCF it becomes
quite effective to propogate WIFIF hotspots. As socalfreenet has done it
is possible to get property owners like Appartment buildings and
business comples to house a hotspot. Minimal upkeep cost and they also
benifit for the expertise of volunteers. Imagine having legit WIFI for
the whole downtown core. Or hotspots all along the transit way
My personal interests lie in two realms. Being a geographer I am
interested in starting a mapping project of WIFI use in Ottawa and then
make the maps and analysis availbale to the public. Various products
would indicate publicly open hotspots that are meant to be public. I
will be using the Ottawa GRASS (GIS) Users group as a vehicle for this
data when we get to that point. If you're interested in the mapping
project check out the site and join the mailing list.
http://cemml.carleton.ca/OGUG/
Another WIFI project I would be interested in playing with is trying to
plan and design a route for a cross city, closed network via WIFI. This
of course would use GIS (geographic Information systems) to plan the
optimum line of site path. It would also give people a chance to test
their home brew antennas, setup open source bases hotspot capture points
and practice Linux network admin on a closed network.
The network could aslo be open, but that could encourage cheating on
spanning the network. Seamless linear coverage From Barrhaven (my area
of course) to the river and Kanata to Orleans. Then we find some points
to jump the river with high gain antennas and go Aylmer to Hull and onto
Gatineau. perhaps push up towards Chelsea. Chuck in some WIFI hotspots
and you have a pretty good coverage. Some spider legs spanning from the
network cover the hypotenuse. The process is the important part, not the
end product with this project.
We should keep posted on each others progress, or heck, cooperate in
some manner. Fancy Concept.
At http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osf_ow/ there is a bilingual
discussion group on the creation of a project similar to "Île sans
fil" (http://wwww.ilesansfil.org/) in the Gatineau/Ottawa area.
These folks have been to Ottawa twice to give talks about their
project. Their first talk is here:
http://www.bsdcan.org/2004/papers/wireless.pdf
In brief, they provide the technical expertise and support for
wireless access points in cafes/bars/etc so that any may use the
wifi. That's something I'd like to see in Ottawa.