• SummitJune2001

From MattWestervelt's post to SeattleWireless about the WirelessSummit...

Saturday was a somewhat informal meeting (although it did have an agenda) at Eugene's house in NW Portland. Sunday was the PersonalTelco meeting at Portland State University. They filmed the whole weekend and there will probably be a stream of it available once they get it edited.

Some highlights:

PersonalTelco http://www.personaltelco.net/

• Showed off CaseySpain's mapping software and announced that it is going to be released (most likely GPL) this week. There was also an antenna demo from AndrewClapp showing us a twist in the yagi design. Using 1" washers instead of the 1 1/2" ones that we've been using, he's got an 18" directional using a pringles can as a reflector. Total cost is something like $15 plus you get to eat chips.

NoCat http://nocat.net/

• A new (2 or 3 months old) group in Sebastopol/Sonoma County CA. RobFlickenger is part of this group and they've got some cool stuff going on. They've used some surplus (486/100) pen based computers to make wireless gateways. They boot right up into linux and fire up their wireless card and pcmcia nic. Pretty slick little boxes for about $100 through HRC (kind of like RE-PC ,but in the bay area) Another thing that they've done is the Wireless Routere Project (WRP). We may want to adopt this for our upstream side links.

BaWug http://bawug.org/

• BaWug is up to their usual stuff, providing information, not building networks. MattPeterson let us in on some cool information. There are a couple of startups that have made software access points in both Linux and FreeBsd. We'll never get the source, but binaries will be available soon. Also, there is a chance that we can get some little 486's with PCMCIA slots and onboard nics for about $200.

NycWireless http://nycwireless.net/

• About 2 months old and moving like all things new york. TerrySchmidt is the founder and is investigating 501(c)3 status for their group and perhaps a 'WirelessAlliance' group. Also, they are working with PTP on "ActivePortal" software which is doing "Reverse Intrusion Detection". Basic Gist: it sits on your gateway machine and runs snort. If someone sets a flag, it drops their route.

GlennFleishman http://glennf.com/

• A freelance reporter and spoke about 3G, Spectrum and the importance of owning your own network. He told us some interesting bits about mobilestar and starbucks and what he thinks the future holds for commercial network providers. Expect an article from him in the Seattle Weekly about Seattle Wireless and other community networks soon.

I didn't speak on Sunday, but Saturday was somewhat interesting. There was a bit of discussion about non-profits and the pros and cons of incorporation. As usual, I kept my anti legal-entity stance and tried to stress the Metropolitan Area Network idea rather than just testing out the mettle of ISP lawyers. It appears that even though these other groups are more interested in the "Last Mile" right now that they do see the benefits of high speed city access and it is a 2nd generation goal for them.

All in all, the WirelessSummit was pretty cool, plans are in the works for one in San Francisco this November and another in New York next March.

Below are some photos from the June meeting in Portland by SamChurchill. NOTE: Matt Westervelt skipped out before we had a chance to get photos. These photos could use some ID but I'm not sure how to format wiki (in a table) yet. http://www.netscum.com/~clapp/wireless.html AndrewClapp showed how to make a $20, 15dBi Yagi, the blonde bombshell is TerrySchmidt of nyc wireless, MattPeterson has the glasses. Adam Shand is in the middle and I'm not sure of the identities of the people on the left, perhaps bcwireless?

Not pictured is red-haired RobFlickenger. His "Wireless Community Networks" ($24.95, O'Reilly), is a MUST BUY for ANYONE interested in community networking. It's clear, concise, comprehensive and entertaining. Rob Flickenger is a national treasure! - SamChurchill

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