Wireless Mesh
Victoria Wireless Mesh Project
There is a current effort to build a city wide wireless mesh network to provide open, free access to the internet for all of Victoria. This project grew out of discussions at regular Ideas Meetings in Victoria. To find out more about the project or get involved check out openwifi.ca or Facebook page.
Project Mandate
Create open, free wireless connectivity.
Concept and Project Outline
The basic concept is the Internet as a public service. This is not to compete with ISPs but to operate in parallel. We have turned the traditional approach to a municipal level wireless mesh network on its head. The majority of municipalities that have taken on projects like this, approach the project as any other service, by tasking it to a department, creating a budget using public funds, and then having to continually justify its expense. We are working with businesses and residences to host Access Points and Repeaters, as well as contributing a fraction of their bandwidth in exchange for advertising space on the captive portal for the device they are hosting or sponsoring.
We believe this approach has several key benefits:
- A direct benefit to local people and local organizations that use and support it.
- Immediate and inherent embedding in the community.
- Decentralized infrastructure without a central point of failure.
- Overall lower cost to install and maintain.
- No cost to the end user.
Device
We are currently developing firmware for selected hardware but the plan is to be much more inclusive than just supplying appropriate hardware. Eventually a DIY image for retail home routers will be made available for home users to be able to contribute to the overall mesh using their existing hardware.
Consider incorporating spectrum analysis of background noise - to see what is interfering with WiFi and to what extent.
More to come later.
Getting Involved
If you would like to get involved, you can contact the project through our Facebook page or at openwifi.ca. We are looking for volunteers, take a look below and see where you can help out.
Testing
We need mobile users for testing in late November. We are in process of creating a public demonstration in Market Square and will need help testing any and all wifi enable devices. *More details to come, if you’re keen contact us at [mailto:testing@openwifi.ca testing@openwifi.ca].
Reference
One Laptop per Child’s approach to Mesh Networking everytime they say "children" or "they", with they being children, imagine it saying "users" or "clients"
DIY wireless mesh network Hurray Africa! This looks really easy.
OpenMesh has a $50 device that requires no configuration. (uses BATMAN? -TB)
Digital Impact Group "it’s democratic" approach
English Freifunk documentation. This uses a variant of OpenWRT. It is used by the African network listed above.
OpenWRT is a linux based firmware project. (uses BATMAN I think -TB)
DD-WRT is also a linux based firmware project. It has pretty good penetration amongst nerds (eg. Tyler) for domestic routers. It seems to support OLSR.
BATMAN is a mesh routing protocol.
OLSR is a mesh routing protocol.
Babel is yet another mesh routing protocol.
Bullfrog Wireless - Nick M’s company
Victoria now has wifi capable parking meters