How make my whole town wireless?

I live in a small 25k Midwestern town

Is it possible to make the entire town wireless without
having to get FCC permission?

Sort of a grass roots get a bunch of citizens together
and just do it?

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>I live in a small 25k Midwestern town
>
>Is it possible to make the entire town wireless without
>having to get FCC permission?
>
>Sort of a grass roots get a bunch of citizens together
>and just do it?

Exactly, there are a number of such efforts underway. IMHO, the
setup, maintenance, and support issues would swamp anyone, but they
are trying it. IIRC, at least one of them is building a mesh, which
would add some redundancy, while probably sucking up most of the
bandwidth keeping the mesh alive. 8*)

TANSTAAFL...

(E-Mail Removed) hath wroth:

>I live in a small 25k Midwestern town
>
>Is it possible to make the entire town wireless without
>having to get FCC permission?

Yep. 2.4GHz and 5.7GHz wireless does NOT require an FCC licence. The
new 3.65Ghz band requires only registration.

>Sort of a grass roots get a bunch of citizens together
>and just do it?

Here's an exercise for you. Let's say you build a mesh network and
you buy a mess of Tropos mesh poletops. Figure on about $1,000/ea.
http://www.tropos.com/municipality.html
If you've got a downtown area, you'll need at least 5 of these per
square mile. How many square miles do you plan to cover?

Aggregate bandwidth tends to diminish rapidly after going through
several hops in a mesh. Therefore, you need at least one wired T1 for
perhaps every 5 poletops. At T1 is about $600/month plus hardware.
How many T1's are you going to need?

The backhaul into the internet will also require that purchase
bandwidth from an ISP. Figure about $200/month per T1.

The midwest is mostly flat. However, if you have hills or
obstructions, you'll need to add extra poletops to cover those hidden
areas. The more hills, the worse it gets.

Of course, you don't just install such a system and have it run
itself. You need monitoring, abuse management, user support,
maintenance, insurance, and everything a regular ISP has. Are you
ready to go into the ISP business? Who gets the phone calls at
midnight? In general, you'll need to contract out the operation to an
existing ISP.

Don't forget you need the cooporation of the city. If they want to be
mean and nasty, you'll find building permits to be difficult to get.
I'm sure you'll enjoy rubbing elbows with the politicians.

There's always your friends in the cellular, two-way land mobile,
DSL/cable modem, and telecom business. They consider municipal
wireless to be a threat and specialize in making life miserable for
anyone that tries. Be prepared to have regulations and laws passed to
make your life difficult.

Then, there is the tin foil hat crowd. "You're irradiating me" is the
traditional war cry. Be prepared to deal with the lunatic fringe and
defend yourself against specious health claims.

If you're still interested, supply some detail and I'll throw in some
specific reading material in municipal networks. Meanwhile, start
here:
http://www.muniwireless.com
The various reports in the lower right corner are worth a skim.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>Then, there is the tin foil hat crowd. "You're irradiating me" is the
>traditional war cry. Be prepared to deal with the lunatic fringe and
>defend yourself against specious health claims.

You're not kidding, one of the concerns about putting cellphone
antennas on a nearby water tower was that it'd make the water
radioactive.

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:13:38 -0500, William P.N. Smith
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>Then, there is the tin foil hat crowd. "You're irradiating me" is the
>>traditional war cry. Be prepared to deal with the lunatic fringe and
>>defend yourself against specious health claims.
>
>You're not kidding, one of the concerns about putting cellphone
>antennas on a nearby water tower was that it'd make the water
>radioactive.

You just have to promote the added benifits such as reducing
bacteria levels in the water system, proactive reduction of the
weak cancer cells in the body before they can get to be a
problem, and reduced heating cost in the winter.

William P.N. Smith <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Exactly, there are a number of such efforts underway. IMHO, the
>setup, maintenance, and support issues would swamp anyone, but they
>are trying it. IIRC, at least one of them is building a mesh, which
>would add some redundancy, while probably sucking up most of the
>bandwidth keeping the mesh alive. 8*)

What got me to thinking abt it was an article in recent
PC Mag abt a mesh network

I just it was very cool and wondered if it was low cost
and easy to do. And if it was would look into doing it
in my small home town.

On 1/31/2006 8:18 PM, William P.N. Smith wrote:
> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>> I live in a small 25k Midwestern town
>>
>> Is it possible to make the entire town wireless without
>> having to get FCC permission?
>>
>> Sort of a grass roots get a bunch of citizens together
>> and just do it?
>
> Exactly, there are a number of such efforts underway. IMHO, the
> setup, maintenance, and support issues would swamp anyone, but they
> are trying it. IIRC, at least one of them is building a mesh, which
> would add some redundancy, while probably sucking up most of the
> bandwidth keeping the mesh alive. 8*)
>
> TANSTAAFL...

Milwaukee is putting in a city wide wireless network. I don't think FCC
approval was needed.

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>If you're still interested, supply some detail and I'll throw in some

Understood Jeff....all the potential problems that is.

How abt just doing say my block or two from my own
house?

On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:19:40 -0600, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>If you're still interested, supply some detail and I'll throw in some
>
>Understood Jeff....all the potential problems that is.
>
>How abt just doing say my block or two from my own
>house?

That's quite a reduction in scale.

It's fairly easy. Put an access point and antenna on your roof.
Connect the AP through a router to your DSL or cable modem. Figure
out some way to keep the hackers out (hint: WPA with RADIUS
athentication). Figure out some method of billing the pisses off the
fewest number of potential customers. Put a sign in the lawn saying
"Open for Business".

I don't know how big your "block" happens to be. (Hint: numbers are
nice). With just the stock antennas found on most laptops, your range
will be about 300ft maximum. Add a few tress, buildings, hills, and
whatever in the way, and it will be much less. If you have
interference from any other nearby wireless networks, even less.

Search Google for hot spot hardware, software, and services. I have
some favorites, but since I have no clue what you have to work with,
how many users you plan to service, what manner of bandwidth you plan
to offer, and if there are any other limitations, I can't offer a
specific recommendation.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 (E-Mail Removed)
# http://802.11junk.com (E-Mail Removed)
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <(E-Mail Removed)> on Thu, 02 Feb 2006 00:04:09
GMT, Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:19:40 -0600, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>>How abt just doing say my block or two from my own
>>house?
>
>That's quite a reduction in scale.
>
>It's fairly easy. Put an access point and antenna on your roof.
>Connect the AP through a router to your DSL or cable modem. Figure
>out some way to keep the hackers out (hint: WPA with RADIUS
>athentication). Figure out some method of billing the pisses off the
>fewest number of potential customers. Put a sign in the lawn saying
>"Open for Business".

I recommend web browser type access control (instead of WAP with RADIUS), as
built into several hotspot products, because it's robust and easy to
administer. You give individual accounts to paying customers, and shut off
the accounts of those that don't pay.

>I don't know how big your "block" happens to be. (Hint: numbers are
>nice). With just the stock antennas found on most laptops, your range
>will be about 300ft maximum. Add a few tress, buildings, hills, and
>whatever in the way, and it will be much less. If you have
>interference from any other nearby wireless networks, even less.
>
>Search Google for hot spot hardware, software, and services. I have
>some favorites, but since I have no clue what you have to work with,
>how many users you plan to service, what manner of bandwidth you plan
>to offer, and if there are any other limitations, I can't offer a
>specific recommendation.

Some choices to get the OP started:

* D-Link Airspot DSA-3100 Public/Private Hot Spot Gateway
<http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=173>
* Instant HotSpot
<http://www.instanthotspot.com/>
* ZyAIR B-4000 Turn-key Hotspot Gateway
<http://us.zyxel.com/products/model.php?indexcate=1028015363>

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR ALT.INTERNET.WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FAQ_for_alt.internet.wireless>