A WirelessNeighborhood is a local geographic collection of WirelessNetworking participants directly connected with each other. Typically, one fixed location serves as a "hub", with an omnidirectional antenna and AccessPoint that the other members are able to see and link up to as "client" nodes. This is usually achieved by having clear LineOfSight to the central antenna and aiming a directional antenna at it, connected to a client device. In addition to the fixed nodes, mobile users can usually connect within a short distance of a central antenna, such as a laptop at the coffee shop down the block.

There are a few standards that have been agreed upon informally for WirelessNeighborhoods:

• The ESSID should be set to www.personaltelco.net and WEP turned off, to allow mobile users to connect to any of the WirelessNeighborhoods without changing settings. This is a primitive form of "roaming" which is goog enough in nearly every occasion because most software uses very short bursts of connection (e.g, a webbrowser) or will rebuild a connection as soon as it discovers that it was lost. It's doesn't to allow seamless transition from one to another however.

• IP address space and Internet routing (and funding) are up to the WirelessNeighborhood, but at the least should have a basic firewall router separating the wireless segment from the local LAN and Internet connection. Hopefully, we can one day share a common CaptivePortal system that we can run from a self-booting Linux router disk or similar.

A WirelessNeighborhood may be connected to other WirelessNeighborhoods within a WirelessCommunity.

[CategoryGlossary]