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January 26, 2007 • 12:25 am 0

Why Mesh Networks are a Really Good Idea for NYC and its Subways

“Sascha Meinrath writes about”:3 “why the use of proprietary wireless technology is an extremely bad idea”, especially when it comes to “NYC’s just announced police wireless network just installed in the subways of NYC”:1:

bq. So imagine my surprise when, in today’s New York Times, I read about the Police Wireless system that was just installed in the NYC subways. It doesn’t work — in fact, they’ve known that it wouldn’t work since 2001, but they built it anyway. And the pricetag? $140,000,000 already spent, with another $60,000,000 needed before it’ll be operational. Think about this a moment, $20,000,000 to wireless the city, $200,000,000 to wireless the subway for police use.

Sascha writes about how mesh wireless technology would have been a much better idea, along with open standards to ensure interoperability.

I wrote about how “mesh could be used to help build real broadband deployments in NYC”:2 over 1.5 years ago:

bq. Here again, mesh networks can play multiple roles. Nodes can disburse wireless internet backhaul from the city’s dark fiber and existing excess bandwidth via a mesh network mounted on lamp posts. That network can feed separate mesh networks that draw the internet up into and throughout a building like a tree drinks water. And people and businesses can move their lives and their livelihoods from building to building without causing network disturbances.

bq. With the help of mesh networks, New York can become a living, organic city, whose lifeblood is the packets of information that flows freely from point to point, person to person, bouncing around automatically finding its way to and from the internet.

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/nyregion/25radio.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1169788736-3XGJTbefig6OwaqKelCOPg
[2]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2005/06/22/why-mesh-based-wireless-networks-are-ideal-for-new-york/
[3]http://www.saschameinrath.com/2007jan25municipal_wireless_idiots_aka_nycs_public_safety_boondoggle

Filed under: Mesh, New York City, News

July 20, 2006 • 10:37 am 0

CUWiN/UIUC Partnership Awarded $500,000 NSF Grant To Develop Next Generation Open Source Mesh Wireless Technologies

Sascha Meinrath and his team just announced a big grant to help develop open source wireless mesh technologies. Congrats, Sascha!

bq. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign partners with CUWiN to build high-performance, robust open source wireless mesh networking technologies.

bq. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $500,000 in grant funding to support a research and development partnership between the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This initiative, “Toward building a Performance-Predictable Wireless Mesh Network”, focuses on the development of wireless routing protocols, network testing systems, and gateway discovery in open-source technology. The grant, part of the Network Technology and Systems Program of the NSF, provides support over a three-year period.

bq. “CUWiN is building the next generation of mesh wireless technologies. Most importantly, CUWiN is releasing our software under an open source license — allowing communities, municipalities, organizations, and individuals around the world to deploy low-cost alternatives to current proprietary systems.” stated Sascha Meinrath, CUWiN Executive Director.

bq. Community and municipal wireless networks have gained tremendous attention in recent years. The ultimate objective of this CUWiN/UIUC partnership is to incorporate research results and system prototypes into production code to be widely distributed by CUWiN. With the help of CUWiN, the research to be carried out by UIUC researchers will make a real impact and effect high-throughput, cost-effective broadband access both for the U.S. and worldwide.

bq. “I am extremely pleased with the fact that NSF recognizes the importance of carrying out research on a real multi-hop wireless network. CUWiN provides us with a city-wide research testbed to understand how, and to what extent, wireless links are affected by PHY/MAC attributes and other environmental factors. All the measurements we make on CUWiN will help characterize the behavior of wireless links and identify control ‘knobs’ in the MAC/PHY layers with which the network capacity can be optimized.” Principal Investigator, Jennifer Hou, stated.

bq. CUWiN’s mission is to help bridge the digital divide by developing low-cost, open source, wireless technologies and making them available to community and municipal networks around the world. CUWiN networks have been established in urban settings like Chicago, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., as well as rural places like the Mesa Grande Indian Reservation near San Diego, California, and Apirede, Ghana. CUWiN continues to expand its development testbed in Urbana, Illinois in partnership with the City of Urbana and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

bq. “The wireless technologies being developed by CUWiN as a part of this initiative hearken back to the innovation and vibrancy of early Internet development.” stated Ross Musselman, CUWiN Outreach Coordinator. “With a focus on maintaining Internet freedom, these new technologies support digital inclusion around the globe.”

Filed under: Community Wireless, Mesh, News

June 22, 2006 • 7:47 am 0

Interesting Uses for NYCwireless Technology

Every once in a while, we hear from people around the country that have made use of some of the technology that NYCwireless has created or has helped to develop, such as Pebble Linux or Wi-Fi Thank You.

Jim Akens, who’s a Senior Engineer at the “Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution”:3 in Massachusetts recently contacted NYCwireless to let us know about how his research institution is using Pebble Linux to set up an off-shore wireless network to enable real-time data reconnaissance.

bq. SWAP stands for “Ship-to-Ship/Ship-to-Shore Wireless Access Protocol”.

bq. SWAP is a collaborative project to provide wireless networking between ships within the UNOLS research fleet and between those ships and UNOLS port facilities. SWAP has been designed to also facilitate connections with instrumented buoys.

bq. The active administrators consist of a few volunteer engineers from varying institutions who have collaborated over several months to argue about the details and make it all work.

bq. The goal of our labor has been to provide voluntary hardware recommendations and software configurations to meet the requirements set forth by the UNOLS Technical Enhancement Committee RVTEC. These requirements were summed up in a series of “StoryScenarios”.

bq. To meet that goal we have provided a parts list complete with vendor information where the items can be purchased, elaborate instructions regarding construction of the devices and their installation, preconfigured operating system distributions that can be freely downloaded and detailed instructions regarding how to install the software and complete the configuration for your situation. And of course, we are happy to come and do this all for you.

bq. To necessitate interoperability, we also provide an administrative role, doling out network addresses, hostnames and other details to participants.

This is a great use of wireless technology, and a great example of why NYCwireless develops and provides open source technology and information to help enable new uses for this technology.

You can find out more information about the Woods Hole wireless network “here”:1 and “here”:2. They’ve even got some great maps of the mesh network they’ve created:

!http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2006/06/tiogalog1.jpg!

[1]http://www.sssg.whoi.edu/swap
[2]http://www.sssg.whoi.edu/whoi_swap
[3]http://www.whoi.edu

Filed under: Community Wireless, Mesh, NYCwireless

December 7, 2005 • 8:42 am 0

$100 Laptop Plus Mesh Networking Equals Salvation for US, Too

$100 Laptop

The “$100 Laptop that the MIT Media Lab:1 has been working on has gotten some press lately, and for good reason. I was at the Lab for a reunion gathering a few weeks ago, and Nicholas Negroponte talked about the “$100 Laptop”:1 as more of a vehicle for social change, as opposed to just another piece of hardware. It is cheap and functional, and it will enable entire countries to equip all of their children with an educational tool.

Most importantly, it will act as a vehicle for an entire country’s youth generation to gain a voice that is independent of the government and independent of the established power structures. Its action as a social tool comes almost entirely from the inclusion of mesh wireless technology into the Laptop, so that each child can communicate with every other child using peer-to-peer wireless connections. Imagine the early American Pony Express, where letters were handed from person to person in order to travel across the country.

Nicholas is appropriately concentrating on third world countries with the “$100 Laptop”:1. But as a vehicle for social change, the Laptop, with mesh wireless, stands to be a powerful force in the US and other first world countries as well, and not just for kids. Right now — and if you’ve read this blog, you know about this already — all communications technologies in the US necessarily get filtered through large Telco/Cable/Media companies. SBC plus AT&T and Verizon plus Sprint control a majority of this country’s communications pipes, and as “I’ve spoken about in the past”:2, are increasingly seeking ways to control the content and conversations that take place over “their” networks.

This is bad for everyone. A reliance on asymmetrical communication services (cable-modems, DSL) chokes off our voices, and our country becomes more and more influenced by fewer and fewer people who care less and less about us, the public.

What can we do? The mesh networking built into Nicholas’ “$100 Laptop”:1 enables communication from person to person, without any need to interact with the Telco companies that want to stifle real conversation. If everyone in the US had a “$100 Laptop”:1 with mesh networking, there would truly be conversation “For the People, By the People”.

This is the real power of a transformative technology, one that can effect change in both First and Third World countries.

[1]http://laptop.media.mit.edu
[2]http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2005/12/tnlaptopcrank1.jpg2005/11/02/sbc-ceo-claims-he-owns-the-internet-and-will-charge-everyone-for-its-use/

Filed under: Community Wireless, Mesh, News, Urban Wireless

December 5, 2005 • 8:07 am 0

No Mesh Networking Standards Yet

An “article in Mobile Pipeline”:1 (as “reported by Glenn”:2 at Wi-Fi Networking News) discusses the six vendors of mesh wireless technologies — BelAir, Cisco, Firetide, Motorola (mesh division), Tropos, and Strix — and indicates that there are no standards between any of them.

We can assume that market forces as well as smart business will eventually cause these vendors and others to come to an agreement on mesh networking protocols and architecture. There’s also work being done by the IEEE 802.11 standards body to a “create 802.11s mesh networking standard”:3. And of course, it would make sense for clients — businesses and expecially municipal governments — to push these vendors to standardize their products to ensure that there’s no vendor lock in. This is particularly important for governments, and should be a criteria for any muni-wireless RFP.

Mobile Pipeline neglects to discuss the open source projects that provide well developed mesh technology. CUWiN, Freifunk, and LocustWorld integrate mesh technologies–”CUWiN”:4 using “Hazy Sighted Link State (HSLS)”:5, “Freifunk”:6 using “Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR)”:7, and “LocustWorld”:8 using “Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector (AODV)”:9. In both of these cases these mesh networks use published, open standards for meshing.

I know I’m leaving out a number of other open source or open standard mesh networking projects. Please let me know what else should be included here.

[1]http://www.mobilepipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=174403205&pgno=1
[2]http://wifinetnews.com/archives/006104.html
[3]http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/tgs_update.htm
[4]http://cuwireless.net
[5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazy_Sighted_Link_State_Routing_Protocol
[6]http://www.freifunk.net
[7]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLSR
[8]http://www.locustworld.com/
[9]http://moment.cs.ucsb.edu/AODV/

Filed under: Mesh, News

October 27, 2005 • 8:01 am 0

WISPA Wireless Crisis Center

Work restoring wireless data services and VOIP in the Gulf states continues. The “Wireless Crisis Center”:1 provides an overview and a running report of how wireless networks are being deployed, with lots of information and pictures.

[1]http://www.radioresponse.org/wordpress/

Filed under: Community Wireless, Emergency Response, Mesh

October 21, 2005 • 10:04 am 0

MIT Media Lab's 20th Anniversary

I’m currently at the “MIT Media Lab’s”:1 20th anniversary event, where the “Walter Bender”:2 has invited all of us alumni back to the Lab to see what work is going on. One of the most interesting thing being talked about is the “$100 laptop project”:3, which integrates low cost Wi-Fi mesh networking. One of the best quotes about the project came from “Mike Bove”:4 (this was relayed via a third party, so the exact wording is certainly not correct):

> “When you have tens or hundreds of kids communicating with each other without the need for centralized access points, then the existing telecommunications system will really undergo a revolutionary change.”

He’s right. More mesh = less centralized (structure, control, dependency, cost). This is a great meme that needs to be promoted publicly. This is truly the power of *community* networking.

[1]http://www.media.mit.edu
[2]http://web.media.mit.edu/~walter
[3]http://laptop.media.mit.edu
[4]http://web.media.mit.edu/~vmb

Filed under: Community Wireless, Event, Mesh

October 5, 2005 • 12:28 am 1

Community Wireless Emergency Response

Sascha Meinrath of “CUWiN”:1 has “written up a brief post”:2 on the lessons that we’ve learned providing ad-hoc disaster recovery. In coordinating much of the deployment effort and interviewing people who are on the front lines, he’s discovered a number of interesting things about how the US responds — both officially via FEMA and other organizations, and unofficially via Community Wireless Network (CWN) groups and WISPs — to emergencies. This is not unlike what NYCwireless found out about providing support networks for businesses immediately after 9/11 in downtown New York (though of course the scope of the disaster was far more constrained in New York).

I’ll quote Sascha’s lessons learned here, since they really are worth repeating, and indicate why both CWNs and modified spectrum policies can be a critical component to helping respond to disasters:

* 5-9s infrastructure (i.e., networks that are fully operational 99.999% of the time) is a myth.
* Volunteers working on shoe-string budgets and donated equipment can, under the right circumstances (especially in chaotic situations), be far more effective than “official responders.”
* Top-down organizing is often far less efficient than distributed (flat) hierarchies for some facets of disaster response.
* FEMA disaster response coordinators often engage in systematic and capricious discrimination against so-called “unofficial” responders — often leading to a degradation in disaster response and harm (both emotional and physical) to disaster survivors.
* The rigidity of the “official” disaster response continues to hamper core mission objectives — even today. For example, the only supported browser disaster survivors can use to apply for FEMA assistance is IE 6.0 (in violation of the government’s own Section 508 accessibility rules) — you can check out this out for yourself at: “http://www.disasteraid.fema.gov/famsVuWeb/integration”:3. FEMA was aware of this problem by September 8th, but has still not fixed the problem — meaning that Mac users as well as Linux and other OS users will have trouble even gaining access to disaster aid.
* Ad-hoc (wireless) networks were often the first telecommunications infrastructure made available to evacuees, beating out the major providers by days (and often weeks).
* Had a diverse array of telecommunications infrastructures been in place, the cataclysmic failure may have been avoided. In addition, networks that are set up to “phone home” to central locations/servers are prone to failure when most needed.
* The telecom incumbents are spending a ton of time & energy to obfuscate these issues and are conducting extensive lobbying efforts to spin this tragedy to their own advantage. Especially important to them are preventing the growth of unlicensed spectrum, ad-hoc networking technologies, and bandwidth-sharing infrastructures.

[1]http://www.cuwireless.net
[2]http://www.saschameinrath.com/2005oct03community_wireless_emergency_response_updates_on_our_work_the_lessons_learned
[3]http://www.disasteraid.fema.gov/famsVuWeb/integration

Filed under: Community Wireless, Mesh, News, Policy

August 14, 2005 • 7:13 pm 0

Bruce Fein's New York Times Letter to the Editor

Bruce Fein, a former general counsel for the FCC under President Reagan, “published a letter to the editor”:2 in today’s New York Times. He claims that Nicholas D. Kristof’s recent column “wrongly chastises New York for neglecting to emulate the citywide wireless networks in rural Oregon” due to far greater cost of deploying Wi-Fi in populated urban areas.

While Mr. Fein is correct in stating that Wi-Fi in New York would be more costly than in, say, Philadelphia (as I have written previously in this blog “here”:3 and “here”:4), his claim that it would cost $1 billion is way off the mark. Yes, New York City recently put out an RFP for a $1 billion wireless network for police, fire, and emergency rescue use. This network is intended to be private and secure, and won’t likely use Wi-Fi (it certainly won’t use Wi-Fi in the normal 802.11a/b/g bands).

From where is Mr. Fein getting his $1 billion figure? “According to JupiterResearch”:5, the cost of building and maintaining a municipal wireless network is $150,000 per square mile over five years. “Sascha Meinrath of CUWiN claims”:6 that a network with a density of 142 nodes per square mile would cost about $49,700. If we take these as a low and a high estimate, we wind up with a total cost for NYC between $15 million and $50 million. Even if we triple the JupiterResearch cost estimates, we don’t come even close to Mr. Fein’s number.

Furthermore, Mr. Fein’s claim that such a network would be entirely Wi-Fi is misinformed. Such a network should use whatever wireless and wired technologies are appropriate. Wi-Fi happens to be the best solution for getting internet access over the “last 100 yards”. As for competition, New York could be the city that encourages the most R&D in wireless, if only the City created the right environment, perhaps by opening up more light-pole franchises at an affordable rate.

All of this doesn’t address the most important issue: only about 35% of New Yorkers have broadband, and only 10% of low-income families in New York City have broadband. And this is the most connected city in the country! We should be demanding that the Mayor and everyone else in our City Government address this situation! Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wi-whatever—wireline or wireless—it doesn’t matter. In fact, any viable solution will make use of all of these technologies, as well as some others that aren’t even released yet.

We shouldn’t look at this problem as being so large and costly that we can’t address it. We can start small. “NYCwireless”:7 and its partners have brought free Wi-Fi to many City parks and other public spaces. And we continue to bring public Wi-Fi to low income buildings and other neighborhoods. Working together, “we”:8 (and every single New Yorker) can make a difference.

[1]http://www.nycwireless.net/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=32
[2]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/opinion/l14wifi.html
[3]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2005/07/20/how-to-bring-an-affordable-broadband-isp-into-new-york-city/
[4]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2005/06/22/why-mesh-based-wireless-networks-are-ideal-for-new-york/
[5]http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3518071
[6]http://www.saschameinrath.com/2005_04_29_15_40__crunching_numbers_cuwin_vs_tropos_–_costs_to_wireless_1-square_mile
[7]http://www.nycwireless.net
[8]http://www.nyc.gov/

Filed under: Community Wireless, Mesh, Muniwireless, New York City, News

August 13, 2005 • 6:38 pm 0

Cost of Deploying an Open Source Mesh Community Network

I’m quite late in posting about “a great blog post”:1 by “Sascha Meinrath”:2 (one of the leaders of the “Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network”:3) about the costs of deploying a mesh-based wireless network.

Sascha’s calculations are based on a rural/suburban environment, which is where most of his experience has been. His cost numbers are quite impressive. For a network of reasonable size, using an open source solution like CUWiNware (Sascha’s open source mesh wireless OS) is *cheaper* than commercial alternatives, even after you include deployment, maintenance, and ongoing costs.

In a city environment, I suspect the numbers would be a little different, but the end result would be the same. First, you’d need a greater concentration of wireless nodes, since tall buildings would cause the wireless signals to degrade faster. Second, you’d need to have a two-pronged deployment strategy since getting wireless connectivity *to* a building doesn’t get wireless internet service *through* a building, to all of the apartments. This is where a mesh network where each mesh node also acted like a hotspot (something CUWiNware doesn’t yet do) would be helpful. You could extend the mesh throughout a building using the same nodes that are used to connect outside of the building.

Regardless, in an urban environment an open source mesh network would be even more important since it would allow people to join and extend the network without any central coordination.

[1]http://www.saschameinrath.com/2005_07_07_08_37__update_2_open_source_open_architecture_muni-wireless_costs_aka_–_how_non-proprietary_wireless_is_more_cost_ef
[2]http://www.saschameinrath.com
[3]http://www.cuwireless.net

Filed under: Community Wireless, Mesh

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