Today I received the text of an agreement with the City of Portland
for transfer of decommissioned hardware previously owned by MetroFi.
My understanding is that initially, this will consist of the 80-some
devices currently on City facilities, that City of Portland
Transportation crews can remove. The agreement has three
stipulations, none of which seems a problem, paraphrasing:
a) no warranty;
b) the City will deliver the donated property to one site of our
choosing (and has some reasonable conditions on this occurring in
a timely fashion);
c) if we can't use some of the donated property, we are required to
dispose of it in an environmentally responsible manner with
qualified regional recyclers and/or disposal facilities.
With the understanding that Free Geek would be a qualified regional
recycler and that they'll accept the parts we can't use, I see no
insurmountable problems in these requirements, and after I consult
with the PTP Board of Directors, I am prepared to sign the agreement.
One of the challenges will be to find a place to store the devices.
Initially, we can accept the devices at my house. I have some storage
space available. In order to stack more densely, the SkyExtenders can
have their omni-antennas, mounting hardware and power injectors
separated in about 15 minutes. The result is the "main can" portion,
which is about 24 inches tall and about 12-inches in diameter at the
base, tapering to 9 inches in diameter at the top. In this condition,
the devices can easily be reconstituted later for use intact.
80 devices at 2 cubic feet each is 160 cubic feet, that's about 13
linear feet of devices stacked 6 feet high.
Should we find that intact-use is infeasable, with another 10-20
minutes work we can break these down into much smaller and/or
disposable parts that would stack more densely.
In addition to my basement, we have had an offer of storage space in
the basement of OakTree Digital (downtown), which we'll need to
confirm.
In addition to 12 we have received previously and the 80 we should be
receiving soon, we may be in line for the 600-some-odd more devices
that are on PGE-owned street lights, though that is a bit further off,
as the City determines how it intends to have those taken down.
There are several ways I'll be looking for help amongst members and
friends of PTP. First, we could use help in the dismantling. Also, we
may need help storing and/or transporting devices, loading and
unloading. If people besides me want to experiment with these things,
to determine some way of creatively reusing them and/or add to the
public body of knowledge about them, that would be utterly fantastic.
Just contact me.
We will also be seeking partners in the community so that these
devices might be put to use. We'd like to work with those partners to
find mounting locations and bandwidth that can be used to support
community wireless networks.
Thanks!
--
Russell Senior, President
[email protected]
--
The Personal Telco Project - http://www.personaltelco.net/
Donate to PTP: http://www.personaltelco.net/donate
Archives: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.wireless.portland.general/
Etiquette: http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/MailingListEtiquette
List information: http://lists.personaltelco.net
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
