Personal Telco Monthly Meeting for April 27th 2005

When and Where

Urban Grind Coffee 2214 NE Oregon St. (take 22nd Ave. 2 blocks North of Sandy Blvd.)

Wednesday, April 27th 2005. 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Agenda

Audio & Video

Agenda Items

Meeting Notes

Scribe: Sam Churchill

About 50-60 people in Urban Grind Coffee shop tonight for the regular monthly meeting of Personal Telco, Oregon’s largest WiFi enthusiast group.

6:00 pm: Darrin Eden (President) - Welcomes everyone: Explains that PersonalTelco is a forum to share information. Been around for about 5 years. Tonight we will talk about the Mississippi Project, unwiring the North Portland community with free access points (as many as possible).

6:10 pm: Nigel Ballard (PTP's outreach and publicity chairman)- Hosts introductions: Nigel goes around the room, spotting new people and asking them to say a few words about themselves, their interests, whether they have nodes or interesting skill sets. Nigel says being unemployed, having a car and having Linux skills are all a plus. About 10 new people speak up.

Nigel says the Tempe Arizona "city cloud" RFP was awarded last week. AOL was one of the 7 that applied for the Tempe build. He said having AOL as a "city cloud" contractor was a new wrinkle. But the AOL proposal was rejected - they forgot to sign RFP!!!

Nigel says competition is a good thing. Qwest and Comcast is not enough. Nigel says Intel is interested in building out an open source software project in Chicago. There problem however; volunteers aren’t bonded or insured, for example.

Nigel will be a speaker at the City Club of Portland, on May 6th. The City Club speech will be on Oregon Public Broadcasting at 7pm that Friday.

6:25 pm: Darrin Eden:

Darrin says check the wiki web page for the Mississippi Hot Zone Asks if there are any new nodes. Tyler says he moved his mobile node (laughter).

June is deadline for membership to vote for new officers. Darrin reads out membership. Says to see Bob Peterson if you are not a member (you need a node).

6:40 pm: MichaelWeinberg

New Business: Michael overviews developments on The Mississippi Project. Michael wrote the Meyer Memorial Grant to provide the Mississippi Neighborhood with free wireless access, along the main street (Mississippi Avenue), and ajoining areas

Michael gives a roof report.

Also talking to the Re-Building Center (a large business on the southern section of Mississippi), and business others for possible node inclusion. Michael notified different businesses in the area about The Plan, looking for supporters.

6:50 pm: Mississippi Avenue Committee Reports:

6:50 pm: Darrin Eden: There will be lots of opportunity to experiment and try different stuff out. The Meyer check has arrived. Equipment has not yet been ordered.

In other news, Darrin says the Kansas City Centurions, sponsored by the city of Kansas City, is sending a team out to Portland investigating WiFi. They will be in Portland, Thursday, May 12, at 3:30pm at City Club downtown office to talk about community tech stuff.

7:00PM: Break.

7:20 pm:Darrin Eden:

Darrin explains that an experiment will be performed tonight. It involves the MIT Roofnet software, which is being tested out as a possible deployment for the Mississippi Avenue Project. Darrin explains that the software project involves Layer 2 (802.11) and Layer 3 (IP based, internet). This mesh system works between the two and uses a single radio.

The Netgear WGT-634U, a $70 box with a USB port and four ports is the basis of this experiment. It uses a MadFi WiFi embedded driver software, and embeds the mesh software to enable multiple hops. Darin says literally anyone can get this thing running.

Tonight's experiment:

don takes off. We are watching the big screen to see if we get a connection....It works!

Much applause and rejoicing.

8:00 pm:Other news:

8:30 pm: Meeting Ajourned.


CategoryMeetingNotes

MeetingApril2005 (last edited 2007-11-23 18:02:37 by localhost)