I had the same idea, but I didn't know my neighbors and lack the guts to knock on their doors. I put up this site www.cityshare.net for people like you trying to setup a neighborhood LAN. www.FreeNetworks.org put it on their frontpage!
You can register your address in there. If you don't feel comfortable giving your address then give an approximate address. For example if you live at 105 Main, put 103 Main instead. Check it out Michael -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of John D. Blair Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 3:20 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BAWUG] starting a community LAN Howdy, I just subscribed to this list last week. I plan to attend the Dec 5 meeting so I can meet some of y'all in person. I've been kicking around the idea in my head of starting a co-op structured neighborhood LAN in my east-bay neighborhood (the Richmond Annex). I've got a small thing going now, where one neighbor uses my Airport access point and the other is just wired into my LAN with CAT-5. I'd like it to be bigger... the idea of cheap net access for my entire block gets me really excited, especially since its something concrete I can give back to my community using my best skills. However, while I'm an expert at TCP/IP networking, I'm an RF novice, and I suspect I have a lot to learn. Are there some useful resources people on this list can point me towards? I've found a surprising lack of HOWTOs and such during my (admittadly brief) google searches. I'm specifically interested in these questions: - what's the best hardware to use for access points? - how can I plan how many repeaters I need based on the topography? I'm near the crest of a hill and am willing to erect a mast to get the antenna up higher. - are there organizational structures alread designed for this? (note, I'm not thinking net topology, I'm thinking people-structure. how do I collect money to pay for the bandwidth and upkeep? what are optimal membership structures? what can I reasonably expect to delegate to others early on?) - how much of my own time should I budget to get this thing going? I realize many of these questions will have answers unique to my situation, but I figured pinging this list should help me get to the answers faster. best regards, -john. -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
