Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Free Wi-Fi Blankets San Francisco

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 20:03:53 -0500

Free Wi-Fi Blankets San Francisco

Innovative philanthropy project aims to spread wireless Net over city limits.

By Melanie Kim, Tech Live

A project to help bring free Wi-Fi to the masses is picking up steam in the San
Francisco Bay area. If it succeeds, it could become a model for other similar
networks all over the world. On "Tech Live," see how the project to broadcast an
Internet signal to a city could change Wi-Fi and the way we log on forever.

Share and share alike

Some think wireless Internet should be for sharing, and Tim Pozar is a socially
minded techie who's using his Wi-Fi know-how to do just that. But he's not
sharing just with his neighborhood, but with dozens of neighborhoods. The whole
project is perfectly legal and within FCC limits, and in most cases only costs a
few hundred bucks to build.

"What we're doing is lighting up a number of blocks," he says of the Wi-Fi
signal while rifling through some boxes of tech junk. "What I'm doing is what we
call a neighborhood area network, or NAN."
The former DJ, radio engineer, and founding member of the Bay Area Wireless
Users Group, has dedicated himself to the project. It's part of the Bay Area
Research Wireless Network, which is dedicated to extending technology for
social, educational, and public safety concerns.
He says, "Usually the geeks that do all the networking are not RF (radio
frequency)-clued, and the people that do RF are not geek clued."

Anatomy of the network

Wi-Fi is a generic term that covers any device that is interoperable with the
802.11 networking standard. Wi-Fi has been done in houses, neighborhoods, and
Starbucks everywhere, but this is a whole Wi-Fi network that stretches for
miles, not just several feet. Antennas and a friendly Internet service provider
-- in this case United Layer -- are the keys.

It all starts with United Layer, which provides the bandwidth from a location in
downtown San Francisco.

"So we have a radio link up to San Bruno (Mountain)," he says, referring to the
1,314-foot-tall hill that rises just south of the San Francisco city limits. The
signal is transmitted to a dish that's on a building filled with other towers
and dishes, most belonging to radio stations. That building is atop the
mountain, where there's a 360-degree, unobstructed view of the city -- exposure
that's critical for Pozar's wireless network.

"There's a little computer that's connected to that dish. It transmits to that
omni-directional antenna," he says, pointing to another antenna. It looks like a
foot-long piece of white PVC pipe, with a cap on top.
The dish, computer -- encased inside a metal box along with several Wi-Fi cards
-- and the antenna, are all connected by metal piping to form one unit, which
Pozar built himself. He gets to keep that unit on top of the mountain by
providing a local radio station with Net access.

That antenna is key to the network. It sends a Wi-Fi or 802.11 signal to 29
other "access points," as Tim calls them, including one on his own rooftop far
below and several miles away in San Francisco's Sunset District. There, Pozar
showed what's inside the access-point boxes.

"There are the radios that will rebroadcast the bandwidth out to the
neighborhood as well as connect back to the mountain top," he says, pointing to
the Wi-Fi cards inside another metal box."
Now, thanks to Pozar's work, almost anyone in the neighborhood with a laptop and
Wi-Fi card can get free, high-speed Internet access.

Wi-Fi for the globe

Tim says he set up the network because he wants to give Internet access to
people who can't afford or access it, especially people living in Third World
countries or depressed areas of other countries.
"Those are the places that need it," he says. "Unfortunately that digital divide
is becoming larger and larger."

Pozar explains that you can't build a network like this anywhere. It would be
tough, for instance, in flat areas. San Francisco was ideal, he says, because of
the nearby mountains and a technically savvy population. For now, Pozar is
consulting with neighboring Marin County to help it set up a similar network.

Get on the NAN

If you want to connect to Pozar's network, you'll need some gear, and you'll
need to live within a quarter-mile of one of the 30 access points that make up
the network. If you do, a Wi-Fi card in a computer or laptop will allow you to
connect to an access point.

If you live within eight miles of San Bruno Mountain and have a place -- a
rooftop often does well -- that provides a direct line of sight to the
mountaintop, you can buy and build your own access point. Most of the equipment
you'll need is available at computer and electronics stores, or through online
retailers.
An organization in San Francisco called SFLan will build a node for you for
$1,000, allowing you to connect to the network and also broadcast a signal that
your neighbors can latch onto. The group's website also has a ton of helpful
information on how to connect to NANs in San Francisco.
http://www.techtv.com/news/print/0,23102,3587957,00.html

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