[ogWiFi] Wireless access for a whole community...How to do it

[Ian Gough]

> I assume there are antennas that can boost the range and still stay within
> the confines of the WIFI spec and not spill over into commercial bands. Such
> high gain antennas as the ones found here
> (http://www.whotspot.com/p_wifi.htm)
>
> The keys are open source solutions, public/non-licensed air space, open
> standards, non-proprietary solutions.
>
> Perhaps one solution is each housing until has a repeater and then we hard
> wire inside the structure.
>
> Another solution might see wireless access for all residents

I suspect your biggest problem would be regulatory. Too much apparent
power and you need a license.

>
> The second scenario is an apartment complex. We could get DSL and run wires
> in an old infrastructure, but that would be cost prohibitive I would
> imagine. So lets picture 4 floors and over 230 residences. I assume this is
> unique as we are no longer talking a wood structure but concrete and re-bar.
> Also not to mention Cable companies and phone service providers that
> probably already pay to have their hard wired infrastructure.
>
> The goal is 10 communities hooked up to high speed internet, Wifi may be
> part of the solution.
>
> Because the residences would more than likely be the ones funding the
> internet connection we would implement a captive portal to ensure only the
> sponsoring community benefits (at least for the short term), so I have been
> looking at wifi dog again, hosted on a box and not embedded in a router.
>

Use wireless mesh for simplicity. Add multiple ISPs and connections
for redundancy. When one internet connection fails, the wireless works
in a degraded mode, but you still have a connection through the other
connections.
(http://open-mesh.com/store/)