Wireless community network
Wireless community networks or wireless community projects or simply community networks, are non-centralized, self-managed and collaborative networks organized in a grassroots fashion by communities, non-governmental organizations and cooperatives in order to provide a viable alternative to municipal wireless networks for consumers.[1][2][3]
Many of these organizations set up
The First Latin American Summit of Community Networks, held in Argentina in 2018, presented the following definition for the term "community network": "Community networks are networks collectively owned and managed by the community for non-profit and community purposes. They are constituted by collectives, indigenous communities or non-profit civil society organizations that exercise their right to communicate, under the principles of democratic participation of their members, fairness, gender equality, diversity and plurality".[5]
According to the Declaration on Community Connectivity,[6] elaborated through a multistakeholder process organized by the Internet Governance Forum's Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity, community networks are recognised by a list of characteristics: Collective ownership; Social management; Open design; Open participation; Promotion of peering and transit; Promotion of the consideration of security and privacy concerns while designing and operating the network; and promotion of the development and circulation of local content in local languages.
History
Wireless community networks started as projects that evolved from
Wireless community networks started out by turning
Regarding the international policy scenario, discussions on Community Networks have gained prominence over the last few years, especially since the creation of the Internet Governance Forum's Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity in 2016, providing "a much needed platform through which various individuals and entities interested in the advancement of CNs have the possibility to associate, organise and develop, in a bottom-up participatory fashion collective 'principles, rules, decision-making procedures and shared programs that give shape to the evolution and use of the Internet.'".[3]
Early community projects
By 2003, a number of wireless community projects had established themselves in urban areas across
In August 2000, Consume was founded in
The Wireless Leiden hobbyist project was established in September 2001 and constituted as non-profit foundation in 2003 with more than 300 active users. The Wireless Leiden foundation aimed to facilitate the cooperation of local government, businesses and residents to provide wireless networking in Leiden Netherlands. The first wireless community network in Spain was RedLibre, founded in September 2001 in Madrid. By 2002 RedLibre coordinated the efforts of 15 local wireless groups and maintained free RedLibre Wi-Fi hotspots in five cities. RedLibre has been credited for facilitating the widespread availability of WLAN in the urban areas of Spain.[14]
In Italy, Ninux.org was founded by students and hackers in 2001 to create a grassroots wireless network in Rome, similar to Seattle Wireless. A turning point for Ninux was the lowering of prices in 2008 for consumer wireless equipment, such as antennas and routers. Ninux volunteers installed an increasing number of antennas on the roofs of Rome. The network served as example for other urban community wireless networks in Italy. By 2016, similar wireless networks had been installed in Florence, Bolongna, Pisa and Cosenza. While they share common technical and organizational frameworks, the working groups supporting these urban wireless community networks are driven by the different needs of the city in which they operate.[15]
Houston Wireless was founded in summer 2001 as the Houston Wireless Users Group. The telecommunications providers were slow to roll out third-generation wireless (
NYCwirelsss was established in New York City in May 2001 to provide public hotspots and promote the use of consumer owned unlicensed low-cost wireless networking equipment. In order to get more public Wi-Fi hotspots installed, NYCwirelsss contracted with the for-profit company Cloud Networks, which was staffed by some of the founding members of the NYCwireless community project. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001 NYCwirelsss helped to provide emergency communication by quickly assembling and deploying free Wi-Fi hotspots in areas of New York City that had no other telecommunications. In summer 2002, the Bryant Park wireless network became the flagship project of NYCwireless, with about 50 users every day. By 2003 NYCwireless had more than 100 active hotspots throughout New York City.[17]
Early project in rural areas
In 2000, guifi.net was founded because commercial internet service providers did not build a broadband Internet infrastructure in rural Catalonia. Guifi.net was conceived as a wireless mesh network, where households can become a node in the network by operating a radio transmitter. Not every node needs to be a wireless router, but the network relies on some volunteers being connected to the Internet and sharing that access with others. In 2017 guifi.net had 23,000 nodes and was described as the biggest mesh network in the world.[19]
In 2001, BCWireless founded to help communities in
Co-operation between community networks
For the most, early wireless community projects had a local scope, but many still had a global awareness. In 2003, wireless community networks initiated the Pico Peering Agreement (PPA) and the Wireless Commons Manifesto. The two initiatives defined attempts to build an infrastructure, so that local wireless mesh networks could become extensive wireless ad hoc networks across local and national boundaries.[21] In 2004, Freifunk released the OpenWrt-based firmware FFF for Wi-Fi devices that participate in a community network, which included a PPA, so that the owner of the node agrees to provide free transit across the network.[22]
Technical approach
There are at least three technical approaches to building a wireless community network:
- Cluster: Advocacy groups which simply encourage sharing of unmetered internet bandwidth via SSID (for low-quality roaming), supply equipment, DNSservices, etc.
- mesh networkto provide Wi-Fi access to the internet
- Device-as-infrastructure: In 2013 the peer-to-peer network that still works when not connected to the wide area network.[23]
Firmware
Wireless equipment, like many other
Hobbyists got another boost when in 2004 the OpenWrt firmware was released as open source alternative to proprietary firmware.[24] The Linux-based embedded operating system could be used on embedded devices to route network traffic. Through successive versions, OpenWrt eventually could work on several hundred types of wireless devices and Wi-Fi routers.[25] OpenWrt was named in honor of the WRT54G. The OpenWrt developers provided extensive documentation and the ability to include one's own code in the OpenWrt source code and compile the firmware.[26]
In 2004,
In 2006,
Community network software
By 2003, the Sidney Wireless community project had launched the NodeDB software, to facilitate the work of community networks by mapping the nodes participating in a wireless mesh network. Nodes needed to be registered in the database, but the software generated a list of adjacent nodes. When registering a node that participated in a community network, the maintainer of the node could leave a note on the hardware, antenna reach and firmware in operation and so find other network community members who were willing to participate in a mesh.[30]
Organization
Organizationally, a wireless community network requires either a set of affordable commercial technical solutions or a critical mass of hobbyists willing to tinker to maintain operations. Mesh networks require that a high level of community participation and commitment be maintained for the network to be viable. The mesh approach currently requires uniform equipment. One market-driven aspect of the mesh approach is that users who receive a weak mesh signal can often convert it to a strong signal by obtaining and operating a repeater node, thus extending the network. [citation needed]
Such volunteer organizations focusing on technology that is rapidly advancing sometimes have schisms and mergers.[
Business models
Wireless community projects made volunteer bandwidth-sharing technically feasible and have been credited with contributing to the emergence of alternative business models in the consumer Wi-Fi market. The commercial Wi-Fi provider
Wireless community projects for the most provide
Regulation
Certain countries regulate the selling of internet access, requiring a license to sell internet access over a wireless network. In South Africa it is regulated by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).[33] They require that WISP's apply for a VANS or ECNS/ECS license before being allowed to resell internet access over a wireless link. The Internet Society's publication "Community Networks in Latin America: Challenges, Regulations and Solutions"[5] brings a summary of regulations regarding Community Networks among Latin American countries, the United States and Canada.
See also
- AWMN
- Bryggenet
- Community Broadband Network
- Computer network
- DD-WRT
- List of wireless community networks by region
- Multiple-input multiple-output communications(MIMO)
- Neighborhood Internet service provider
- South African wireless community networks
- OpenWireless.org, a project by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
- Roofnet
- Wireless LAN Security
- nodewatcher, an open-source node database project
References
- .
- ^ Internet Research Task Force. (August 2016). Request for Comments 7962: "Alternative Network Deployments: Taxonomy, Characterization, Technologies, and Architectures"
- ^ ISBN 978-85-9597-029-8.
- ^ Wireless-Friendly ISPSs Electronic Frontier Foundation accessed 4 May 2011
- ^ a b Belli, Luca; Baca, Carlos; Huerta, Erick; Velasco, Karla (2018). Community Networks in Latin America: Challenges, Regulations and Solutions (PDF).
- ^ IGF's Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity (2017). Declaration on Community Connectivity.
- ^ ISBN 9781139492577.
- ^ "Internet and Evolution in Manchester Communities". 15 August 2011. Retrieved 1 May 2019.
- ^ Talkin' 'bout my generation November 16, 2006
- ^ Free Culture, Free Software, Free Infrastructures!, Interviews with Klohjschi, Jürgen Neumann (Freifunk Germany), Kurt Jansson (Wikimedia Germany), Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (United Nations University), Lawrence Lessig (Creative Commons), Allison, Benoit (Montréal Wireless Community) October 18, 2006
- ^ ISBN 9780596005023.
- ISBN 9781118344903.
- ISBN 9780262014649.
- ISBN 9780596005023.
- ^ Leonardo Maccari; Paolo Magaudda; Stefano Crabu; Federica Giovanella (2016). "Hackivism, Infrastructures and LegalFrameworks in Community Networks: the Italian Case of Ninux.org" (PDF). p. 7.
- ISBN 9780596005023.
- ISBN 9780596005023.
- ^ "What is guifi.net?".
- ISBN 9783847409601.
- ISBN 9781926836041.
- ISBN 9780262014649.
- ^ ISBN 9783319052182.
- ^ Daniel Bean (8 March 2013). "Commotion Wireless: Free and Open Way to Network". ABC News. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
- ^ ISBN 9780262014649.
- ISBN 9780262014649.
- ISBN 9780470072714.
- ISBN 9783319052182.
- ^ ISBN 9780470381595.
- ISBN 9781926836041.
- ISBN 9780262014649.
- ^ Easier said than done: Second thoughts about municipal Wi-Fi May 25th, 2007
- ISBN 9781926836041.
- ISBN 978-92-64-04692-4.