Next Sydney Mobile Monday is about WiMAX and 3G/4G, euh, next Monday. There is a WiMAX demo and a panel discussion between Mobile and WiMAX operators.
There will also be an introduction to a UTS post-grad project: iWiFi:
Course director Linda Leung : “The goal of the iWiFi project is to create a business model and technical framework for a free wireless hotspot at Bondi Beach. In conjunction with the hotspot, the group has also developed a portal for information about Bondi Beach that is accessible via laptop and mobile devices.
“The group – Caroline Chung (Australia), Winnie Yang (China), Joy Huang (Taiwan), Urs Kemmann (Germany), Dave Kaplan (USA) and Ranjeet Elkunchwar (India) – believes that WIFI technology will soon become an integral part of our daily lives enabling systems based on internet-on-the-go to make spontaneous decisions.”
Come check it out if you can! See you there.
ACMA takes notice as it publishes its Top 5 Trends (pdf) in new communications services, applications and emerging technologies to keep an eye out on for the next five years, including Mesh Networks. There’s even an honourable mention of SydneyFreeNet.
Stil wrote about the National Broadband Network in the recently released Federal Budget 2008 on Crickey with a follow-up post on his own blog: Rudd government delivers yesterday’s broadband.
It’s funny; just a couple of days ago when I met with David Mathews we were talking about something similar but with with the rollout of TransACT a few years back and how that network and infrastructure was obsolete before the project was completed.
And we’re about to see a repeat of that. In fact, as Stil says, other countries are already rolling out networks with speeds far above what is in the spec for this National Broadband Network.
So it seems we haven’t learned any lessons from previous such projects and we’re about to waste a whole lot of money doing it again – or are we? Perhaps it’ll never come to fruition, what with a large portion of the National Broadband Network budget “Not For Publication”.
Wireless infrastructure on the other hand is far more scalable and easier to upgrade.
A quick one.
If you’re thinking of setting up a local hotzone, a nice How-To: Set up a Wi-Fi Hotzone Using Meraki part 1 / part 2. Nice general overview, but could be a bit more in depth. (yes, we’ll need to write one ourselves.)
Read the story on Australian IT.
A wireless mesh network here would have helped as a redundancy mechanism – although even assuming that there was a saturation of nodes in place (and as far as I know there would be lucky to be half a dozen advertised open networks) to cover that sort of area is beyond the capability of a mesh network if there were no gateways in that region and the entire mesh was running off the closest gateway nodes to the communication blacked-out area; Meraki advises no more than 10 hops off a gateway, so with 200 metre range Meraki Outdoor units you could at best cases penetrate 2km into a suburb that has no gateway nodes operational. But still – that’s better than nothing. That could have reduced the number of affected homes and businesses by 20% in this case.
Just to illustrate another benefit of wireless mesh networks.
BarCamp Sydney v3 has passed again. We set up a wireless network for attendees to use. With the Internet connection handled by UNSW, so plenty of bandwidth, we set up two gateway nodes and one repeater (one Outdoor and two Mini’s). Of course, we could easily manage the splashpage with a BarCamp welcome, as well as have BarCamp and Free Australia Wireless text banners.
The Meraki’s handled traffic pretty good, with people playing WoW, watching youTube, surfing, demoing,… with the Meraki’s handling about 50 users and transferring 1.8 Gb over each day.
You can clearly see when lunch was on…
We talked to lots of people, mostly in the hallway, and in our presentation on Saturday we focused on the Meraki Dashboard and its settings. We also had a group discussion on developing meshing software for mobile devices or laptops. And then there was even a presentation on how, with the help of a couple of Merakis, a student circumvented his school’s net censorship… Some people signed up for a group buy (we’ll get back to you soon!).
Sunday afternoon, we had a Meraki Mini to give away to the attendees.
Another great day at Wireless World. More positive feedback, support and best wishes – which was really encouraging. Mark Pesce gave a presentation titled “Everywhere” at the main speaking slot at the Wireless and Mobility Summit.
Lots of people were interested in being involved in the project with some even committing to participate in the next hardware bulk buy. We also gained some valuable contacts with vendors, organisations and government bodies which we will be looking for opportunities to work with in the future.
Day 1 at the Wireless World expo was quite successful. Lots of positive feedback (nearly non negative), and great industry contacts. Read Nat’s write-up:
“Really good day, got lots of people interested in the project and got a chance to hone our project spiel and a better idea of which points to emphasise or explain in more detail or in different ways.”
Big thanks to Nat for driving up to Sydney from Canberra in the morning (4 hours!), and back again in the evening! And big thanks also to Alison to show up and help out (on her free day, and with beautiful weather outside). Sometimes the two of us just wasn’t enough to handle all people at the booth.
Come say hi at booth 65 of the Wireless World 2008 expo in Darling Harbour this week Wednesday and Thursday. The expo is free to attend, though you do need to register at entry. Heckle us with your questions, get touchy-feely with a Meraki up-close (oooh), or just say hi!
“Now into its fifth year and still experiencing unprecedented growth, Wireless World has become the region’s biggest dedicated end-user, solutions-focused event.
The event brings together mobile workers and wireless enterprises and provides them with an effective way to research the industry and then choose the best fit technologies, solutions and suppliers for their organisations.
In short, Wireless World is all about the integration and convergence of wireless, mobile, RF and IP solutions and how this can be applied to improve the way we all communicate and do business.”
I know most of us need to work during the week, so meet us next weekend Saturday and Sunday at BarCamp Sydney v3! Free again!
NO SPECTATORS, ONLY PARTICIPANTS
BarCamp Sydney April 5 & 6, a whole weekend!
When you come, be prepared to share with BarCampers.
When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.
BarCamp is an ad-hoc unconference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.
It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.
Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to participate.
What’s Next?
Sign up on the wiki, check out the blog, tell all your friends, prepare your presentation, ask your company if they’re interested in sponsoring…
Go!: http://barcamp.org/BarCampSydney
