Open-Mesh.com is slowly but surely improving. Just recently I noticed their homepage changed slogans. It went from something like “WiFi for the developing world” to “WiFi Where You Need It”. I like the latter, myself.
New firmware updates have also happened and beta 1.21 has been released. There was a glitch upgrading to the c953 firmware because of the technique used to upgrade. This required a lot of people to manually reset their routers if they were using the test firmware. They fixed the problem by using the “normal” way to upgrade and version c955 went off without a hitch.
According to Antonio Anselmi, author of the ROBIN mesh network software which powers Open-Mesh, says that the latest kernel is about a week away. Yay!
This weekend at BarCampEdmonton1 I set up a temporary WiFi network using my Open-Mesh routers. Things went relatively smoothly after I unplugged 2 of my repeaters. For some reason plugging in 1 gateway and 5 repeaters at the exact same time wouldn’t let some of the repeaters update with new SSIDs. In the end I used 2 gateways and 2 repeaters.
At one point over 40 people were using the WiFi at the same time. The network saw a total of 71 users throughout the day.
I’m looking forward to the better firmware that Open-Mesh is developing on a daily basis. Eventually I’d like to see these things as simple as plug-and-play without having to worry about them checking in.
BarCampEdmonton was a great success this weekend. There were over 100 people in attendance and it was great to meet new people and learn about new projects and interests.
A picture of the schedule is here:
I went to
Financing an Idea
What Problem Does The Semantic Web Solve?
Angel Fund, U of A, Robert
Evolution of Nexopia
Why Twitter Will Rule The World
Emerging Mobile Platforms
I also led a session on Edmonton Wireless & WiFi Mesh Networks with Mack Male.
One of the most interesting conversations I had was with a fellow named Clark Murray. Clark and three other guys have created a great product called dub5 which stands for the 5 W’s in everyone’s life, the Who What Where When and Why. Essentially dub5 is a new take on scheduling and calendar management. Their major advantage over competitors like Outlook and Google Calendar is their text message integration. Personally I love this and I hope to be using it as soon as it’s ready.
Since all the video I took of my sessions ended up being like 300mb a piece and 20 minutes long I haven’t finished uploading them to Google Video yet. However, check out the quick demo I had the dub5 guys give me.
BarCampEdmonton1 is in 9.5 hours. I’ve stayed up later than usual quickly putting together a splash page for the WiFi network I’m setting up. This will let me track all the traffic it receives over the course of the day.
I reflashed and updated 5 of my Open-Mesh routers this evening. I’m hoping that’s enough but I have at least 10 I can break out if I have to.
I’m hoping to do a session at BCE1 on mesh networks and the current state of technology surrounding them. I seriously haven’t planned anything yet so I’m going to gather my thoughts a bit before I hit the hay.
This morning, Mack Male and I attended a city council meeting where the Next Gen committee was presenting the results of their wifi pilot project. The agenda called for the City-Wide Wireless Internet and Wi-Fi Service - Pilot Project Internal Evaluation to be the first item at 9:30 a.m. Unfortunately they got wrapped up in protocol announcements and they didn’t actually start talking about it until around 10:30.
The city’s IT Director, Steven Gordon did most of the talking. According to their surveys, people expect the service to be there. The public system is based upon the existing city employee network, the public section just builds on top of it. This means that for incremental costs a public access point can be placed anywhere the city has infrastructure. Steven thinks that piggy-backing on the city wifi is the best option to keep costs low.
They mentioned how some other cities have tried municipal wifi as well. Apparently Philadelphia ran their own city wifi project that ran around $3 million, however they have partnered with another company. I’m 100% sure on this though. Councilor Don Iveson mentioned that some transit corridors in Seattle allow wifi access, like in the back of busses. Calgary also had a city wifi project that ultimately failed.
There are some major problems with Edmonton’s current public wifi:
E-mail is blocked
Traffic is filtered
Filtering drives a lot of the expenses
It’s insanely expensive to set up a hotspot (like roughly $20,000 expensive)
Councilor Ben Henderson brought up the filtering problem and he strongly encourages the notion that we open it up. Based on his past experiences traveling and using our own wifi he’s had frustrating experiences when he couldn’t access his email.
Councilor Karen Leibovici doesn’t think this project is self sufficient and it won’t make any money. She posed the question of why we should spend this money on public wifi when the private sector is already competing. Even without my bias I agree (yes, quite the statement, I know :P). I’m of the opinion that the government shouldn’t try to compete with the private sector, unless it’s in an out of control industry that needs regulation.
Gordon feels that “we’ve struck the right balance,” but he did agree to create a business case outlining a cost benefit analysis as councilor Linda Sloan requested. This was seconded by Ron Hayter who would also like to see a numbers break down and the implications involved.
So the council moved to continue the exploration of free wifi. I believe that if they are able to bring the costs down to a reasonable level they might have a chance. Hopefully our taxes aren’t going to be wasted on super secure and expensive wifi hotspots. Many people see open free wifi as a utility and they believe it will give Edmonton some credibility as a world class place for travellers, business, and young people alike.
