Hardcore Wireless Networking

Seminar @ RHA Harlow Carr Gardens

20th March 2003

The Seminar was organised by Lindsey Annison of Digital Dales/Edenfaster with an introduction by Guy Kewney of NewsWireless.net

John Wilson - Technology Concepts Ltd, Secretary of Arwain.net

Case Study – a success story from the US – the rural Iowa model is adopted by the BSG as a case study. It highlights no-license wireless as a last mile solution, a commercial Wireless ISP success story, that is clearly a model for what might happen in the UK.

John showed a video case study of a wireless ISP success story in rural Iowa, Interlink's @anywhere wireless internet service delivers affordable broadband across the community from local government to small business and residential use.

The project was backed by the community and the state, you can see the video here

The local area seemed very flat and they used the water tower and large building to relay the wireless signals.

Apparently the US equivalent of our 802.11b equipment are licensed to transmit at 1 Watt, whereas the UK government restrict the output to 300mW

Niall Murphy - Inspired Broadcast Networks

The Cloud is a UK nationwide, broadband Wi-Fi network providing Internet and corporate network access services. The largest Wi-Fi network in Europe, The Cloud will provide Wi-Fi access in some 3,000 locations across the UK. The Cloud provides its carrier class network to branded service providers, enabling them to provide branded Wi-Fi services to their customers.

The Cloud has partnered with Intel, Ericsson and BT. It is part of a leisure company that puts gaming machines in public houses. It is leveraging this network of gaming machines to provide wireless hot spots around the UK.

At present it would appear that areas need to be ADSL enabled before this organisation could be of use to our project. But if you see a computer based gaming machine with internet access in a local pub let me know.

Neil Daly - SkyLINC

SkyLINC has developed the innovative LIBRA (Low-cost Integrated Broadband Radio Access) solution with the aim of providing the cheapest first mile solution for service providers wishing to reach those customers presently unserviceable by cost and coverage restrictions.

A truly innovative solution to rural problem from a Yorkshire company. This involves putting a tethered aerostat about 1½ miles up in the air, the tether is fibre and the terrestrial transmitter has an 80 km footprint. They aim to give customers 2Mb each way (max ADSL at the moment is 2mb download and 256k upload). You would need a satellite dish on the ground to receive the signal. 18 units would cover 95% of the UK.

SkyLINC are looking to sell/licence the technology to ISP's and are looking for a partner to fund the first platform. They have all the planning/regulatory licences in place. The first operational unit is about nine months out.

See Guy Kewney's article: BT faces shock competition in leased lines - from balloons This article and the accompanying photograph was written at the seminar and, I believe, submitted to Guy's website using the Mesh AP below.

Jon Anderson, Richard Lander - Locust World

Demonstration of LocustWorld Mesh AP

A Mesh box is a Linux based wireless access point and router combined. You do not need any knowledge of Linux to run one.

The company set up several boxes and linked them to the Aramiska Satellite van to give the attendees a local area network connected to the internet. Once my laptop had connected to the Mesh network browsing the web and checking the broadband registrations seemed to be very quick with no discernable latency.

The advantage of the Mesh boxes over standard wireless ap's seemed to be the access control and the routing protocols.

Workshops:

Technology Agenda – LocustWorld hands-on session on the MeshAP; also includes James Stephens of Consume
Regulation and Policy Agenda – John Wilson, member of BSG Wireless Working Group
Community and Business Agenda – Charlie Bass, Chair of the BSG Wales Group

I attended the Community workshop and learned a lot about the Cambridge Ring/Invisible networks from John Harris of Carnet Ltd

Phil Gee of The Bulls Head Inn in Hayfield Derbyshire had lots of funding ideas which I propose to follow up.

Finally I would like to thank Lindsey Annison for her efforts in organising a very useful event. The RHS Harlow Carr Gardens provided a superb location and the lunch was to be recommended.

The Seminar was organised by Lindsey Annison of Digital Dales/Edenfaster with an introduction by Guy Kewney of NewsWireless.net

John showed a video case study of a wireless ISP success story in rural Iowa, Interlink's @anywhere wireless internet service delivers affordable broadband across the community from local government to small business and residential use.

The project was backed by the community and the state, you can see the video here

The local area seemed very flat and they used the water tower and large building to relay the wireless signals.

Apparently the US equivalent of our 802.11b equipment are licensed to transmit at 1 Watt, whereas the UK government restrict the output to 300mW

The Cloud has partnered with Intel, Ericsson and BT. It is part of a leisure company that puts gaming machines in public houses. It is leveraging this network of gaming machines to provide wireless hot spots around the UK.

At present it would appear that areas need to be ADSL enabled before this organisation could be of use to our project. But if you see a computer based gaming machine with internet access in a local pub let me know.

SkyLINC has developed the innovative LIBRA (Low-cost Integrated Broadband Radio Access) solution with the aim of providing the cheapest first mile solution for service providers wishing to reach those customers presently unserviceable by cost and coverage restrictions.

SkyLINC are looking to sell/licence the technology to ISP's and are looking for a partner to fund the first platform. They have all the planning/regulatory licences in place. The first operational unit is about nine months out.

See Guy Kewney's article: BT faces shock competition in leased lines - from balloons This article and the accompanying photograph was written at the seminar and, I believe, submitted to Guy's website using the Mesh AP below.

A Mesh box is a Linux based wireless access point and router combined. You do not need any knowledge of Linux to run one.

The advantage of the Mesh boxes over standard wireless ap's seemed to be the access control and the routing protocols.

I attended the Community workshop and learned a lot about the Cambridge Ring/Invisible networks from John Harris of Carnet Ltd

Phil Gee of The Bulls Head Inn in Hayfield Derbyshire had lots of funding ideas which I propose to follow up.

Finally I would like to thank Lindsey Annison for her efforts in organising a very useful event. The RHS Harlow Carr Gardens provided a superb location and the lunch was to be recommended.