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December 27, 2006 • 11:29 am 0

NYCwireless 2006: A Year in Review

Wow! What a year 2006 has been. Wireless networks are growing at an enormous rate, and municipal and community wireless networks have had a breakout year. NYCwireless was no exception.

This year we accomplished many things. Most notably, we outpaced NYC’s Parks Department in building free, public Wi-Fi networks in city parks. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tonight I’m giving a presentation at our monthly NYCwireless meeting about all of the things that we’ve accomplished over the year, and also some of the things that happened around us in the wireless world.

We’ve got a great 2007 planned, and it promises to be an even bigger year for NYCwireless.

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/149/335212304_ca4bf54d77.jpg!

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/136/335212334_385a0bc98f.jpg!

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/142/335212401_be3a5cd2b7.jpg!

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/130/335212451_5b2b4a5f80.jpg!

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/162/335212481_f25a7a9d37.jpg!

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/335212529_83452730e8.jpg!

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/128/335212557_4b7d2cd5f3.jpg!

Filed under: Community Wireless, New York City, NYCwireless

December 18, 2006 • 8:27 pm 0

Save the Internet.com: "Independence Day"

“SaveTheInternet.com”:1 has posted a great new movie about Network Neutrality:

There’s a lot of information at the “SaveTheInternet.com”:1 site, where you can sign a petition and contact your legislators.

[1]http://www.savetheinternet.com

Filed under: Network Neutrality, Policy

December 14, 2006 • 5:45 pm 0

Photos from CAIDA COMMONS workshop

The “CAIDA COMMONS workshop”:3 is over and there were a lot of great things accomplished. I’m always impressed by how dedicated all of the people involved in community networking are.

Here’s a great photo of our side trip to see “SoCalFreeNet’s”:1 network installation. Mike Mee took us up onto the roof of one of the buildings his group lit up.

!http://static.flickr.com/123/322056632_38d71da2de.jpg!:http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattw/sets/72157594419100937/

You can find “more photos on flickr”:2, thanks to “Matt Westervelt”:4.

[1]http://socalfreenet.org/
[2]http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattw/sets/72157594419100937/
[3]http://www.caida.org/projects/commons/
[4]http://www.seattlewireless.net/~mattw/

Filed under: CAIDA COMMONS, Community Wireless, Event, Muniwireless, NYCwireless

December 12, 2006 • 1:56 pm 0

International Icon for Wireless Internet Access

A couple of months ago I was asked by “WIRED”:2 magazine to judge a contest as part of “NextFest”:1 they were holding to create a Universal Wi-Fi Icon. In speaking with them about why they were holding the contest, the Drew Schutte, “WIRED’s”:2 publisher, told me that he and his staff saw how Wi-Fi networks, especially free, community-based ones like “NYCwireless”:3 were using their prevalence and success to cause social change. He said he believed that through Community Wireless Networks and Municipal Networks, the dream of universal, affordable internet access was finally making progress. Drew thought that with all of their organizational vision, the one thing that lots of these networks lacked was visibility. And what better way to bring some visibility to their work but to create an an icon that can be used by all of those communities to indicate the availability of free Wi-Fi.

Barbara Bloemink, Curatorial Director, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and Colleen Macklin, Design Department Chair, Parsons The New School for Design, the other judges for the icon contest, sat and discussed the many creative submissions for hours on end. The choice was difficult. We thought about lots of different directions, from showcasing the “free” part to of community wireless networks, to the internet connectivity that such networks usually provide, to the community engagement and development that generally lives at the core of such groups, to the ubiquitous nature of most municipal wireless efforts. We even had discussions about the nature of the design language that we wanted to promote with the icon choice so that when given to the community, the icon can be developed and take on a number of descriptive roles.

!http://static.flickr.com/144/320591936_cefda250a6_t.jpg!:6 !http://static.flickr.com/132/320591927_9f39f45481_t.jpg!:7 !http://static.flickr.com/131/320591920_9ebde88f6a_t.jpg!:8 !http://static.flickr.com/135/320591913_703eb1db9f_t.jpg!:9
!http://static.flickr.com/141/320591905_099ab24390_t.jpg!:10 !http://static.flickr.com/138/320591896_938c17dc0d_t.jpg!:11 !http://static.flickr.com/129/320591890_05b8af528e_t.jpg!:12 !http://static.flickr.com/133/320591884_180fa19ef2_t.jpg!:13
!http://static.flickr.com/138/320591878_a949e07781_t.jpg!:14 !http://static.flickr.com/129/320591867_72c1def1e9_t.jpg!:15 !http://static.flickr.com/123/320591862_230383c858_t.jpg!:16 !http://static.flickr.com/131/320591854_42e7798fe3_t.jpg!:17
!http://static.flickr.com/126/320591847_a369e15364_t.jpg!:18 !http://static.flickr.com/135/320591839_93c7efdd62_t.jpg!:19 !http://static.flickr.com/129/320591830_bebf9bf415_t.jpg!:20 !http://static.flickr.com/123/320591825_98cfde7e4d_t.jpg!:21
!http://static.flickr.com/130/320591819_d4372aff37_t.jpg!:22 !http://static.flickr.com/139/320591812_e78106646b_t.jpg!:23

In the end, because of how such community and municipal networks are expanding across the world, especially in developing countries, and because we didn’t want to constrain the iconography to a single language (English), we chose a simple globe with the ubiquitous radiating signal lines. The design is both easy to understand (these networks connect us to each other throughout the world) and universal (at least, we believe that a “globe” is mostly understood as representing the Earth), and should be able to be used across the myriad community and municipal networks around the world.

The winning design was submitted by Val Frixione from Los Angeles, CA:

!http://static.flickr.com/127/320635794_598c6856ac.jpg!:24

Val says, “A wireless hot spot is like a digital oasis that enables us to connect to the world. This is the main concept behind the proposed design: the depiction of planet earth offering a wireless connection to those who need one.”

One of the interesting extensions that we finished our day discussing was the concept of locality that is a basis of most community networks. Though people understand that the internet a universal and world-wide tool, community networks are local creations, reflecting the needs and structures of local communities. For example, in New York City, our community wireless networks are based in parks and public spaces, since that’s where so many residents and visitors spend their time. Compare that to Montreal (home of “Ile Sans Fil”:5), where the culture (and weather in the winter) drive many indoors to cafes, or to Champaign-Urbana (home of “CUWiN”:4), where lack of choice and affordability of internet access has driven a suburban and rural community to develop a mesh network that grows from house to house.

In order to reflect the different types of local structures and venues, one of the first iconographic extensions I’d like to see is the creation of supplemental icons, like coffee cups, buildings, trees, houses, and so on that can be used to indicate the type of nodes that are available on the network. Such icons can appear on the node profiles and maps.

Continuing in this local context, additional icons that reflect the capabilities and content of each local node should also be developed. For example, for the urban style hotspots in New York, Montreal, and many other cities, we can have supplemental icons that indicate there’s local content, music, art, and commerce that is available at that location through the hotspot.

There are lots of other ideas that are possible. We’ll be starting to develop some of them, and others should make use of the icons and come up with other ideas as well.

[1]http://www.nextfest.net
[2]http://www.wiredmag.com
[3]http://www.nycwireless.net
[4]http://www.cuwireless.net
[5]http://www.ilesansfil.org
[6]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591936/
[7]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591927/
[8]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591920/
[9]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591913/
[10]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591905/
[11]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591896/
[12]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591890/
[13]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591884/
[14]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591878/
[15]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591867/
[16]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591862/
[17]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591854/
[18]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591847/
[19]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591839/
[20]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591830/
[21]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591825/
[22]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591819/
[23]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320591812/
[24]http://www.flickr.com/photos/danaspiegel/320635794/

Filed under: Community Wireless, International, Muniwireless, NYCwireless

December 10, 2006 • 10:38 pm 0

Wi-Fi in Flushing Meadows Corona Park

One of WiFiSalon’s unannounced, Nokia-sponsored hotspots is at the “Queens Zoo”:1 in “Flushing Meadows Corona Park”:2. An NYCwireless member recently took a trip out there to test out the wireless signal, and sent back a report with some photos. As best as we can tell, the hotspot is located in the building called the Wild Room, and the signal reaches about 100+ yards from that location.

Why the New York City Parks Department still refuses to announce or publicize Wi-Fi in the parks — WiFiSalon built “or otherwise”:3 — is beyond me.

Non-scientifically created coverage map based on basic signal availability testing:

!http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/queens_zoo_map1.png!

There’s no signal at the entrance:

!http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/queenszoo01.png!

There’s barely a signal at the bridge over the waterfront marsh:

!http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/queenszoo21.png!

There good signal at the Wild Room:

!http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/queenszoo11.png!

There’s also reasonable signal behind the zoo, but our correspondent fails to see the use of getting Wi-Fi along the road:

!http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/queenszoo31.png!

[1]http://nyzoosandaquarium.com/5719193
[2]http://maps.google.com/?q=53-51%20111th%20St,%20Queens,%20NY%20(Queens%20Zoo)
[3]http://auth.nycwireless.net/hotspots_map.php

Filed under: Community Wireless, New York City, NYCwireless

December 10, 2006 • 5:56 pm 0

CAIDA COMMONS workshop, Dec 12-13

Laura Forlano and I have been invited to attend and participate in the CAIDA COMMONS workshop in San Diego on December 12-13. “CAIDA”:3, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis, is holding the “COMMONS (Cooperative Measurement and Modeling of Open Networked Systems) workshop”:1 as a means to figure out how community network organizations — builders, policy analysts, researchers, and supporters — can work together to push forward the science and practice of community networks.

bq. CAIDA proposes a collaboration to simultaneously solve three acute and growing problems facing the Internet: a self-reported financial crisis in the Internet infrastructure provider industry; a data acquisition crisis which has severely stunted the field of network science; and a struggle for survival within emerging community and municipal networks, who are in an ideal position to address the first two problems but often lack resources and experience to make informed operational decisions, and are also continually threatened by incumbent-driven legislation.

bq. We propose an experiment to build a cooperative national backbone to connect select community and municipal networks to each other, and to the global Internet. Peering would be conditionally available to county, state, and federal government entities, academic institutions, and community wireless initiatives. The conditions are two-fold: (1) the attached networks must make select operational data available to Internet technology and policy researchers under appropriate legal data sharing frameworks; (2) the attached networks must agree to cooperatively develop and abide by policies based on confirmed results of empirical data analyses.

Laura and I are going as representatives of NYCwireless (builders) and as researchers (especially on Laura’s part). While we won’t be blogging directly from the conference, I expect there will be lots of projects and collaborations that will come out of the workshop.

[1]http://www.caida.org/workshops/commons/0612/
[3]http://www.caida.org

Filed under: CAIDA COMMONS, Community Wireless, Event

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