Building Wireless Community Networks

Certain cities--Singapore is one example--have begun to outfit gathering places like airport lounges and downtown coffee shops as "hot spots" that are served by wireless Internet antennas. It's possible for anyone with an IEEE 802.11b card in a laptop to sit down in one and have Internet access immediately. The author of Building Wireless Community Networks, Rob Flickenger, thinks this is a great idea. He's written this small, thin volume to explain to readers why wireless networking is a community asset, and to bring them up to speed on the technologies available for creating wireless hot spots. Community here means a collection of people, as in a town or neighborhood.

Wireless networking protocols are complicated, but IEEE 802.11b and the products that have sprung up around it (like Apple's AirPort and similar offerings from Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems) are pretty easy to set up and integrate into a network. Flickenger's treatment deals with these admirably but places more emphasis on configuring operating systems (notably Linux) to work as wireless gateways for transient users. The really fun reading has to do with custom antennas, though. Flickenger explains--no kidding--how to convert a Pringles potato-chip can into an antenna for wireless networking and goes into detail on how to work around the challenges posed by topography and human-made obstacles. This is a smart book about one of the most exciting frontiers in computer networking. --David Wall

Topics covered: Means of delivering wireless network access (mainly Internet access) to rooms, buildings, communities, and whole geographic regions of up to a few miles in diameter. Design and placement of access points, as well as configuration of network nodes, is covered in detail, as are the legal and political aspects of building a wireless network for general community use.

In Building Wireless Community Networks, author and O'Reilly network administrator Rob Flickenger offers a compelling case for building wireless networks on a local level: They are inexpensive, and they can be implemented and managed by the community using them, whether it's a school, a neighborhood, or a small business. This nuts-and-bolts guide provides all the necessary information for planning a network, getting the necessary components, and understanding protocols that you need to design and implement your network. The wireless Internet infrastructure, also known as Wi-Fi, is based on the 802.11b standard.

The book covers Rob's experience with the Sebastopol Community Network (NoCAT), a multi-tiered network that provides wireless access for O'Reilly employees and free Web browsing to anyone in the area who has a Wi-Fi card in his or her computer. He describes his experience in using 802.11b, selecting the appropriate equipment, finding antenna sites, and coping with the general problems of outdoor networking.

Building Wireless Community Networks starts off with basic wireless concepts and essential network services, while later chapters focus on specific aspects of building your own wireless networks. The final chapter is a detailed journal of Rob's experiences in building his first community network. He begins with his first attempts at using a wireless card at a conference, covers the real-life experience of trying something new, and ends with notes from the Portland Summit, a national gathering of wireless aficionados.

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