> Is the uptick in power more than the cost of their old Knology bill > they no longer have to pay? Because that was the arrangement... >
Actually Yes but suffice it to say we had more running up there than we really needed. That is part of why I personally have been working at reducing our hardware at the NOC. We also replaced all 83+ lightbulbs in JudyBug's with compact florescent (cf) bulbs. This reduced energy consumption in the store by consuming less energy and generating less heat. I also installed a TED (http:// www.theenergydetective.com/index.html) in the NOC on our 60amp circuit so we could monitor the NOC's power consumption separate from the rest of the building. > > Summary: we are still around but operating on an old and tattered > > shoestring budget. > > Same as when it started :) > True but the two people, me & Sam, footing the bills are unemployed. (Beat that!) > So, my broader question still remains. If you could start over, and do > something even bigger but took much less money and ongoing > maintenance... how would you do it? > > General ideas: > > 1. Better community. > > The project's staffing level sucks because CHAOS went dormant. Our LUG > meetings used to enjoy a pretty large turn-out (for Columbus) at least > once in a while, and the wireless project was basically just a > follow-on thing for the CHAOSers to play with. When was the last time > Columbus geeks plastered CSU and Columbus Tech with CHAOS-meeting > posters? :) > > It's hard getting interesting speakers that appeal to a lot of people, > but in all honesty the regular meet-up at the coffee shop was probably > more popular anyway. So just advertise that :) I agree, CHAOS needs to be resurreccted. CFN alone keeps me pretty busy. Any takers on the CHAOS group? I can help some but someone else needs to take the helm. > We learned a shitload doing that wireless project. You and Sam learned > a lot more about it after I left, for sure. The stuff you showed me > when I visited last year was rad. You guys have done an awesome job. Thanks man! > > What if you had to design another CFn that scaled to ten blocks. Could > you re-work the implementation to be cheaper, say, with an adaptive > mesh that would use multiple egress points to the Internet? Bandwidth > isn't a problem now, thanks to Knology, but if you were to scale to an > area 10x as large, it wouldn't be enough. A smart mesh with clever > routing might allow you to take advantage of random business' > cable/dsl connections (with blessing from the owners, of course.) A > LOLphtless freenet, if you will. Organic to the existing grid. > > We all talked about that in the beginning, but that sort of thing was > really beyond our ability three years ago... but everyone's learned a > lot since then. Naturally, you probably don't have time to do it > unless you get more folks (see #1). Currently the model we have been working with is building a base of customers who have their own egress points. Gymnastics Unlimited is one example. We of course reccomend Knology to customers because of the great support they have given ColumbusFreenet. By doing this we can get funds for hardware and implement the node. This model is important because it has removed our need for the NOC. The second step would be to fill in gaps by meshing the nodes together off of the connections in the area. Sam and I both didn't like WDS protocol since the support across different hardware is flakey at best. We were playing around with OLSR but never put anything into production. Some may wonder why a business would not just put up their own access point (like Country's on Broadway) and be done with it. My pitch on that is this: 1: Freenet offers a better way which includes firewalling your network from the wireless users. This is important for businesses that also use their connection to send card transaction information or have a network of their own that they don't want left exposed. 2: We can enable an authorization process in which users must provide a valid email address and validate the address by responding to an email sent to that account for verification. This way we have "registered" users and they can use their login ID at any of the ColumbusFreenet nodes so they only have to sign-up once. 3: We can offer statistics of usage using a number of categories including usage by MAC (yes this can be spoofed of course). And, if necessary we can block MAC addresses and users across the entire network. Of course this is lightweight blocking. 4: We use OpenDNS and can set up content filtering if desired. (This one is a littlebit up in the air because of censorship/liability) Anyone know a good lawyer willing to write a release form that we can use? 5: We can enable banners across the entire network. If you, the customer, would like to advertise in this space we can provide a banner that Freenet users in other locations can see when they log in. > We did pretty well getting the local businesses to fork over cash for > the access points, but we never had a great solution for remaining > costs... aside from donations. Our fund raisers were fun, but not very > lucrative. Agreed. I am still amazed at the amount of support, funds, and equipment you were able to get in the early days! > I think a free-market approach would be > better. But, it's not an easy problem to solve. Free-market! You seem to forget CFn is still in Columbus. :P The city govt. didn't even show up for the statewide video conference at the Georgia Technical Authority which was in the process of handing out 4 million dollars earmarked by Gov. Perdue specifically for community wifi > In case this all comes off as negative criticism or something, I want > to emphasize that it's anything but! Not taken as negative criticism here. > Again, the real goal of the > project was to bring a lot of people together to do something > relatively constructive, and have everybody walk away a little smarter > than when they showed up. I think we accomplished that pretty well. Agreed, no if we can just get that part going again! I think there are lots of people who would love to do this but time and even more difficult a "common" time available is hard to come by. > (PS, somebody should start the LUG thing going again!) I think the LUG needs to be revitalized regardless of ColumbusFreenet's existance! Oh.. and by the way.. if anyone needs yet another project to help with...... Contact: Hank at the Cannon Brew Pub. He is officially starting a non- profit Bio-Diesel (or Bio-Fuel) organization. Production should start soon. :) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CHAOS706.ORG" group. 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