[CWN-Summit] NYTimes: Where Good Wi-Fi Makes Good Neighbors (NYCwireless Community Hotspots)

[Dana Spiegel]

An interesting article on some of the work I am doing with NYCwireless  
to help build community hotspots.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/technology/circuits/21spot.html? 
oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
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October 21, 2004

Where Good Wi-Fi Makes Good Neighbors
By IAN KELDOULIS

MOHIT SANTRAM, a student at New York University, happily shares his  
high-speed Internet connection with whoever taps the wireless signal  
available within about 300 feet of his apartment in the East Village.

  But Mr. SantRam offers more than just the opportunity to piggyback  
anonymously on an Internet connection. People picking up his signal are  
first directed to a bulletin board where they can post and read  
neighborhood information and gossip.

This arrangement comes courtesy of Neighbornode, a project created by  
John Geraci that is part of a bare-bones software package provided by  
NYCWireless, a volunteer advocacy group instrumental in turning places  
like Bryant Park into public hot spots. The group is encouraging people  
to set up their own hot spots and electronic bulletin boards to let  
communities of otherwise anonymous urbanites find one another.

  In Mr. SantRam's case, he discovered a neighbor who had the same  
favorite band. A trip to a Boston to hear them followed, and the  
neighbor made a small donation toward Mr. SantRam's monthly Internet  
access bill. Other residents have used his Neighbornode to complain  
about the block's noise problems and formulate action.

  "One guy wrote to me and thanked me," Mr. SantRam said about a user  
who logged on from a nearby cafe while visiting from San Francisco. "He  
sent money to pay for the cost. It was nice."

Providing this level of interactivity on a small-scale wireless node  
used to require a large-scale understanding of Unix. But Mr. Geraci, a  
graduate student in N.Y.U.'s interactive telecommunications program,  
said the goal in creating Neighbornode was to make the process easier.  
"If you can install  Microsoft Word on your computer, you can set up a  
community hot spot," he said.

  Instructions, open-source firewall software called M0n0wall and other  
files are at www.nycwireless.net/hotspot. While a dedicated computer is  
required, just about any old machine will do.

And the equipment needed is nothing like the clutter formerly necessary  
to do the job. "Before I got this working," Rob Kelley said of the  
newly configured node he runs from his Chelsea apartment, "I used six  
appliances, a bunch of routing and an antenna set. I ran two wireless  
networks, an internal network and my own local server."

  It was the type of mess only an I.T. project manager like him could  
live with. Mr. Kelley currently runs his Neighbornode hot spot on a  
Soekris 4511, a small single-chip computer without a hard drive that  
sells for about $200. "Now all I have is two small boxes and relatively  
decent-looking antenna," he said. "My wife is really happy."

Free community access appeals to more than people who consider  
themselves guerrilla techies. For over a year, Judith Escalona has been  
exploring ways to bring Wi-Fi to East 106th Street between Lexington  
and Third Avenues, the location of MediaNoche, a new-media gallery and  
digital film studio of which she is co-director.

  At the beginning of this month, Ms. Escalona attended a workshop on  
setting up community nodes offered by NYCWireless, and she was  
impressed. The gallery already provides wireless access inside, but  
ultimately she wants to "blanket the whole area." Neighbornode, she  
said, may fit the bill.

As with other Wi-Fi projects, there are concerns. For some people,  
opening their virtual space means a loss of privacy. Mr. SantRam, for  
instance, no longer does his Internet banking from home, since others  
have access to the Internet through his system. Instead, he trusts the  
landlines of the computers at his school. Mr. Geraci and Dana Spiegel,  
a director of NYCWireless, feel that with standard security measures  
and common sense, there should be few if any problems.

Another fear is that precious bandwidth will be soaked up by thirsty  
neighbors, and monthly access charges will skyrocket. Monowall permits  
the person who sets up the hot spot to allocate bandwidth and maintain  
a healthy personal reserve.

  If these do-it-yourself nodes catch on, a new form of urban  
communication may emerge, taking advantage of the coincidence that a  
Wi-Fi hot spot and a city block are roughly the same size.

  "Different nodes as they get set up can talk to each other," Mr.  
Geraci said. "They can forward information from one to the next. You  
get this grapevine of information at the street level."

Dana Spiegel
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