Wireless Community WAN
One of my newest obsessions is long distance Wlan. Since I moved to Ireland, where broadband is quite hard to get, on top of that quite limited once you get it, I have been looking at alternate means of broadband and Internet connectivity. In my search i stumbled over the several community efforts, which are trying to build wireless community networks for experimenters or others. The target of the WAN's is to connect people inside Ireland wirelessly with each other using standard 2.4 or 5.8 GHz Wlan equipment.
Now, why would I join a community network like that, if I have Broadband and the WAN doesn't give me Internet access ? The WAN allows you to game and share information with other people in your area at higher speeds than what usual broadband connections can provide you with. If you get your internet connection over the WAN you can easily switch provider at any time, without changing your connection. My primary interest in the WAN is my interest in networking etc.
Joining the WAN is free for anybody, you need however to buy the necessary equipment. To join the WAN you need a node in Line of sight (LOS) from your place. The more people join the WAN, the easier it gets to get connected.
A typical client setup consists of a directional antenna, cabling and a wlan card, which will cost you around 100 EUR in total.
A good place to start learning about community WANs and long distance wireless technologies are these:
- The Wan - Experimenter WAN networking
- GalwayWan FAQ
- DublinWAN
- BCWireless
- NYCWireless
- Personal Telco Project
- SeattleWireless
- WifiMap - Mapping the WANs
and lots of other sites. These are all Wireless Community WANs websites. Also very interesting are:
- Radio theory and link planning for Wireless LAN
- MIT Roofnet and it's document about how they designed it.
- Socal FreeNet's 802.11a Relay / Backhaul Project
- Flakey.info has loads of interesting articles on WiFi
- Wi-Fi 'Smart Collars' For Networked Cows is the funny approach to modern wireless networking
I myself started out buying client access kit: 1 802.11b Dell TrueMobile 1150 PCMCIA, 1 PCMCIA to PCI card, cabling (pigtail and LMR400 cable) and a 19db Stella directional antenna.
Ever since i've bought more equipment and started building wireless nodes in the south of Dublin. 1 currently operating and 1 to be deployed shortly. Here are some pictures from one of the nodes temporary first setup:
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This is a PCEngines WRAP Board (Wireless Router Application Platform), equiped with
one 128 MB CF card and 2 MiniPCI Wlan cards. Onboard are a 233 MHz Geode CPU (5x86), 64 MB Ram and 1 Lan adapter. The
board can either be powered directly or via PoE (Power over Ethernet). It will accept anything between 7 and 18V DC and
uses between 3 and 5W @12V without Wlan cards. The first node setup was running Pebble (Debian GNU/Linux on CF) and had one Saneo Prism and one Dell TrueMobile 1150 WLan card. |
| On the balcony i mounted the two antennas connected to the node: one Comet 10db omnidirectional and one 19db Stella, both 2.4 GHz. |
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To keep track of who is connected and active i have developed the WiFiMap package, currently also used for the DublinWAN Map Site. This project has evolved a bit over time and the latest can be found at http://www.marlow.dk/map.
| This is what it looks like when one of the other DublinWAN guys (left in the picture) and I go out scanning for nodes in the area, to see how the network can be expanded. |
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Tools are important when you go out scanning the area for nodes and coverage, plan a new node. Two of these tools
are Kismet and GpsDrive. Kismet is a Wlan scanning tool, that detects clients and access points passively, and stores their position, if combined with a GPS receiver. It will tell you quite a lot information about the ESSID's and MAC addresses you pick up. GpsDrive is a Navigation/Mapping tool. It allows you to follow your track (with the use of a GPS receiver) and shows your coordinates in text and on the map, but also your speed and altitude. Maps can be imported or automatically downloaded from Expedia or TopoMap. A special feature of GpsDrive is, that it can interact with Kismet, showing access points detected on the map. |
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Take the combination of those two programs, add festival (for speech output), my notebook in the backpack, a headset
in the ear, the antenna on the tank of my motorbike and the gps receiver (Fortuna Bluetooth Clip-On) in my pocket and and you have brought Wardriving to the next level: on a motorbike :o). |
| I have this Van, that I brought with me a couple of months after I moved to Ireland. The yagi is mounted on the roof there. The other antenna is not for Wlan, but usually there is a mobile car antenna there, too, which is omni directional. Initially I used a TrueMobile 1150 for scanning, but replaced that with a Saneo. The Senao has 2 antenna connectors and the driver is a lot more reliable, than the orinoco one used for the TrueMobile. I use the hostap driver for the Senao, which is Prism 2.5 based. The yagi has a disadvantage, because it's directional, but the omni car antenna unfortunatly doesn't reach very far. So the combination of the two on the Senao is great. |
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| Unfortunatly when I moved to Galway the headgasket of my Van blew, so I had to find myself another car until the Van is back on the road. This BMW does the job and actually, the Yagi can be mounted there, too :). So don't wonder if you see this setup in County Galway or Clare. It's just me on expanding my WLan map. |
Antennas are quite important when trying to cover distances. I'll add more about that stuff here in time. In the meanwhile you can look at interesting articles on antennas etc. i've found when looking for ideas, what can be done:
Brittas Bay node (not active anymore) - Client node
| In 2004 a client node was setup in Brittas Bay, that was connected to a mountain node in Co. Wexford. The pictures from the setup can be found here. |
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Galway node
| After moving to Galway I'm without broadband again, the best I can get is ISDN. So getting a connection to the Wan was the obvious choice. A lashing kit, 10 feet pole, waterproof box with WRAP boards and some aerials do the job. Pictures and specs of the node can be found here. |
Clonboo node
| Michael is connected to Galway from his place in Clonboo, where broadband of course isn't available either. We've got a good look to Lough Corrib from his house. Pictures of the node setup can be found here. |
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Kilbane node, inital works
| In Kilbane we're building a new node, that will provide one of the backbone connects between Limerick, Shannon on one side and east Galway and Tipperary on the other side. Donie is the one, that kicked the project in motion. |
Installation of omni in Moy, Kinvara
| Ciaran uses the wan to get his office connected with his home, also because he can't get broadband where he lives. Of course, as a proper node, he also expanded his node with a omni to get others going on the Wan. This node is the typical "PC in the Attic" setup. |
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Loughrea node
| The Loughrea node came out of the wish to connect to the Wan, but not being able to, due to bad LOS. Now, Robert had access to a site higher situated than the place he lives at, but only about half a mile away. So a relay node, wind powered, gets established, which acts as local accesspoint for the area. He himself is client to this node. A windmill has been put up to provide power for the node. Pictures are here. |
