[wirelesslan] Wireless in Sydney ? - Re: Wirless in Lyneham?

[Andrew Macks]

On Tue, 16 Oct 2001 jon at unicomsystems.com wrote:

> I can say there is certainly interest in wireless networking in Sydney. There,
> to the best of my knowledge, is no real wireless networking projects occuring in
> Sydney at the moment. There only appears to be a few little wireless links
> between people and their mates' houses.
> 
> I am still very much interested in starting up a wireless networking project in
> Sydney, at this stage, what is mostly being done is looking at the best devices
> to use as a medium for communication. We're usually talking about 802.11b
> devices here, but not always; we are looking at the design of other devices
> which would give greater scalability than 802.11b.

I've also been working on (muchly in the background) on SecretSydneyNet
<http://www.secret.com.au/sydney/>, but it's also still a fair way off.

SecretSydneyNet is a community network (non-profit), with no short-term
plans for internet access via the network.  It's simply a wireless network
which will link local people to each other as well as local businesses (in
an orderly, "non-spam" type arrangement - ie. everything has its
place).  The way the network would work equipment wise would be that a
group of houses (4+) would have to join up from the same block (preferably
adjoining, or have permission from others inbetween to run UTP cable along
their back fence).  The equipment will start with the cheapest wireless
LAN equipment we can get, and the network will be progressively upgraded
from the center outward (ie. 2Mbit links would be moved to the outer areas
when extra 11Mbit equipment was purchased for the inner areas).  And later
with higher speeds again, it's an evolution idea.

I've done a lot of plans for SecretSydneyNet (how routing should work, how
a spider grid should be setup, what areas of Sydney to route around, how
to tunnel between major areas, etc), but a lot of that is not on the site
just yet.

I've also been playing around with a proximity database for ordering
things from local businesses, but again, this is still very early on in
development.

Non-profit != free unfortunately.  As people know, wireless equipment
costs money.

For a block to join the network, it would cost approximately $650, but
this wouldn't be paid upfront.  I'd be funding the equipment, which would
be paid off gradually by people on the network.

Although there would be money coming in monthly, this does not mean that I
will be pocketing any of the money.  Accounts will be set up for each
individual block with information available to those people as to where
their money is going.

ie. upgrading wireless links, repairing cable, possibly purchasing a small
UPS if in a power-troubled area, etc.

It'd be nice to have the network running over a spider-like grid, as
opposed to a single end to end wireless network of multiple links (for
obvious reasons), and eventually land-based cables (via access to
underground cable which has yet to be known as available to us) may be
setup for tunnelling between central nodes for greater bandwidth without
taking down the major network.

Anyhow, that's my plan.

Andrew.