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Community Wireless Mesh NetworkingOverview:Combined case studies of live networks and a hands on workshop showing how mesh networking technology can deliver community broadband services. Maher Ugaily from Community Connected Wireless Project will showcase the wireless network in Kingston upon Thames. Richard Lander from LocustWorld will run a mesh networking workshop showing how to set-up, manage and use a wireless mesh network. You could bring a wireless enables laptop/PDA to participate in Wireless Mesh Demo. Session Facilitator:Maher Ugaily (Superhighways) Biography:Maher Ugaily joined Superhighways, the ICT Support programme in the South London CVS Partnership, as an ICT Support Worker in 2003 after completing a Masters Degree in Computer and Network engineering. In 2006, Maher developed Community Connected Wireless Project a community broadband Project and PC refurbishment project, funded by LSC which now delivers access to training and learning via the internet to more than 500 users on a large housing estate in Kingston. Maher was commended by the ICT Hub Awards in 2007. Richard Lander is director and co-founder of LocustWorld, pioneering wireless mesh networking. Richard's career covers 25 years of computers and communications, with a strong background in open systems and internet networking going back to the early days of the PC and the Internet.Session Notes:Maher talked through partnership and funding, starting in September 2006.Background:When project was planned the council had had suffered in the past when having installed mobile phone masts on top of buildings which the residents were quite angry about. So there was a public consultation before mesh boxes were approved because of the previous reaction. To install them it was necessary to liaise with the council contractors and that was where things were held up. Post Dec 07 there are plans to roll out in Kinsnympton/Chessington to put mesh boxes in libraries so that people can log in and access learning materials. Mesh boxes fitted on original TV aerials, taking power from the lift room on the flats. The mesh boxes on top of flats distribute to the lower level buildings. One problem is the direction the users’ computers faces so they have to be facing the mesh box in order to pick up the signal. Network management: identifies traffic going through the mesh, band width used, who is using, what time of day – e.g. peak/evening etc so very good statistics. There is also a diagram to show the location of each mesh box and how the traffic is moving between the blocks of flats, ie where the signal is being received. Mission was to enable internet access, bring learning home, volunteering and pc plus programme - kids who can’t afford broadband can access learning at home. PC plus programme is using 65 recycled computers from the Primary Care Trust; open source is loaded, configured with a wireless card so it could be used. Those who already had own PCs could get a password for wireless access.The future:
Lessons Learnt:
Questions:Did you achieve complete coverage or were there black spots? With a block of flats it’s difficult as there was a health clinic in between and so it’s necessary to then put a mesh on top of the health clinic…or it could be a pub or a library so you have to go to a separate landlord or, in the case of the health clinic the primary care trust to make sure the signal reaches all the buildings. The network produced on the Cambridge Rd estate goes beyond the boundaries – they sign up to it and then turn up to ‘wireless Wednesdays’ asking for help, even though they should live within the boundaries. So whilst some parts of the estate don’t get the best service, whereas others living outside get brilliant reception. So to overcome this is to putting antennae outside the window, or by a different window to better pick up the reception. So you have to please most of the people most o the time. Also sometimes it is not the connection but a problem with their own computer – e.g. someone might put a fixed IP address and this clearly won’t then connect. Any strong objections from residents? No – they’re getting free wireless access.. Other housing estates then started to lobby the council as they also want to have the service set up. Is it an open network? No, it’s access controlled. When you try to connect it will request a user name and password. But people can provide proof of address to show that they live there. Filtering for content? Not originally, but then later on peer-peer blocking, e.g. Kazar was put on. Also SMPP because computers were sending out spam and ISP said they were going to cut the computer off. Just an ADSL line – some of which they paid for and some of which the council paid for – therefore the partnership has been important and getting to the right person What level of bandwidth? 7 or 8 MB with the council. But you can restrict the width on the mesh to 3MB so it doesn’t affect the council’s bandwidth…also because the council only require it during peak time. Depending on where the users access the gateway. We can look at the way the bandwidth management is used in order to distribute the bandwidth equally across the users, or by looking at the number of gateways available, the history – ie what’s the aggregated bandwidth consumption, what time it’s being used, how much is being downloaded. Therefore it fluctuates but the stats package can provide this information. The system is optimised for interactive use so that if there are a large number of users using the system, those who are getting on to the web or using MSN; these users will get priority. Long term sustained downloading will get lower priority – it won’t stop working but you won’t be prioritised and therefore designed to distribute according to interactivity of user. Therefore you’ll get a good connection to the internet. You can set a class for each user – download/upload and burst speeds which temporarily allows user to exceed their bandwidth. Tele2 – Reading Broadband project – main access nodes for lease lines coming in, similar project. How does the technology compare as it seems to suffer the same problems. Once the bandwidth got over subscribed, the system was slowing because there were a lot of internal problems and finally the project became unsustainable because the cost of transmitters outweighed the service. So, how sustainable is the project? Many projects use this system, they have a growth path where they achieve what they set out to do and continue to grow. So they’ve overcome the obstacles on the way. So with cost, it’s important to make it financially viable. But how can you make that sustainable in a deprived area? There is always funding available. If you’re providing broadband to 500 people, that’s minimum of £10/month – with line rental that’s£20/month so presenting that amount of saving to a funder can be a good argument as it’s saving the council a lot of money. Organisations have to provide accessibility; eg. NHS direct – it’s not equal opportunities if people in deprived areas can’t access it. Basically it’s best to go in partnership with councils, libraries, PCTs etc because they have sustainable funding, and they can support it if funding runs out as they can take it on as their own infrastructure. However, remember the council is a long, bureaucratic service. What are the ongoing running costs? Mainly support if problems with network. Paying for the broadband - £500/year. Project relies on support from volunteers and Locust World. Steering group gave a forecast of how much it would cost to support it and then Super Highways can budget for it. Possibility that they can set up the project and then walk away, but you can’t because you become like a service and therefore people have expectations on how this will be maintained when there are problems. On one hand the upfront cash costs are negligible to keep the system running; for maintenance, pennies per month for electricity and pounds for things that stop functioning..so that’s negligible, but it’s the individuals who keep the support going – ie they can diagnose whether it’s a computer, signal, connection problem etc which the volunteers can trouble shoot. Do you support Windows users? – or just those who have had a computer provided? They support anyone – on Wireless Wednesdays – they will clean an infected computer regardless of whether it is Ubuntu/Windows. 20 Ubuntu computers, only one person brought it back because Firefox isn’t compatible with Learn Direct for example. They have the licence to put Windows 2000 on the computers even though it’s not high spec. Another e.g., a user passed his ECDL even though he was practising at home on Ubuntu. He also got a job as he needed to show experience of using Open Source! When the community realises it’s their own network they want to keep it going. So many people come to Wireless Wednesdays that it’s now helping to recruit volunteers. Are you linking with other learning projects? – e.g. community internet cafes which are linked up with learning and employment within the council to help them gain skills, have you linked up with job agency sites? Wireless Wednesdays is based at a ‘community shop’ – one stop shop, but on a Tues it’s a CAB, another day its refugee action so people who use the centre can sign up to volunteer. Wireless, internet training suites – there are many community halls without broadband/internet, but because it’s in the estate you can get it from the mesh and therefore you can use the community hall for training on lap tops Maher then showed the map with the 10 network sites – and explained how they link directly from into link and where the gateways are. The stats provide a list of all traffic and configuration and total bandwidth used across network. You can then drill down to find what an individual user is using over a period of time. Ethical Issues? Stats give such an in depth amount of information that there may be ethical issues. However users have to first agree to the fact that for network monitoring purposes they will track the internet, ask them to use less if they are over-using it. What often happens is that they’re involved with some criminal activity, the ISP notice that you’re IP is being used. You’re therefore liable. Common carrier status so you’d have to give out information but not responsible. With a totally open network if you cannot name the user who is abusing the internet, the authorities have the right to shut the whole network down rather than blocking the individual user. Users can be identified whether or not they are honestly registered. You can block them and put intercept on their traffic to track them if you get a court order. You are an ISP providing a public internet service so you have to conform to a lot of legistlation which so far hasn’t been tried and tested and not very well enforced. Is it sustainable? The evidence speaks for itself, - very clear graphs showing just how many people are using the service. This is a strong argument in the value of the service (£5000/month) when going to funders. However getting funders to support the network is the difficult part. Cash costs (as mentioned above) are minimal. But the real cost is the soft costs of meetings, contracts, phone calls, office space etc. The hardware – cabling, networks, equipment etc is basically just 10% of over-all costs. Issue of voluntary organisation/council project: Good thing about it being volunteers and not statutory, is that volunteers might be friends with people on the estate so can go into the houses of the users and fix things or diagnose the problem and feed back to Superhighways. How much are the users using? So need to forecast the trend going forward to think about more mesh boxes, gateways, upgraded broadband etc. Capacity of Technology: Each computer is connecting to different nodes simply because it depends which direction the windows face. The technology is capable of more than the conditions dictate – e.g. buildings in the way etc. Use of security cameras.. do you give access to the general public to allow people to see the estates? Reluctant to do that as people feel they’re being spied on. Lots of legislation of registering any camera which is on a public building. Maybe the neighbourhood watch group could make a decision on this so the responsibility is theirs to decide. Mesh boxes are new technology which provides universal wireless internet access over as wide an area as you want. The technology can be installed at low cost and rapidly. Could it therefore be used in a village? Yes – it began as a rural project. With the appropriate antennae, the range is about 40 miles. As it’s a new technology nobody knows how to judge it. On one hand it’s a communication system, but it’s a community network built on volunteer participation, where as elsewhere it’s a paid for private service. There are some community groups who will run a commercial service (like a co-op). Weather doesn’t affect the mesh box. Trees with leaves ie it’s fine in the winter but not in the summer. Sources of bad noise can upset the network on certain frequencies. Standard frequency is 2.4 mhertz (as for wi-fi). In a flat part of the country with a low population, the range is long. However in parts of the country with stone walled houses, how easy is it to get the signal into the house? Ways of solving these issues is laterally – therefore instead of one reall strong transmitter, it works better to either have several transmitters or you can have one transmitter and then cable up the houses quite easily. Also in the flats you can put an internet connection on each floor.( categories: )
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