Is it possible for a neighbourhood to get around the classical provider-customer relationship?

Is it possible for a neighbourhood to get around the classical provider-customer relationship?
Residents in the east of Amsterdam have free access to a wireless local intranet that is being established with financial support from the city of Amsterdam. Draadloos Oost (wireless East), as the experiment is called, was set up by a foundation (SBIP - foundation for the promotion of information and publicity) with origins in the squatter movement.

The districts of Oost and Watergraafsmeer and parts of Zeeburg are linked by four powerful and strategically placed transmitters. These radio stations provide wireless links within the local intranet, which is not yet linked to the Internet. However, residents can use it to share their Internet connection with their neighbours or with friends elsewhere in the district.

The second part of the project embraces the cooperation by SBIP on the development of wireless routing software. Wireless Oost has chosen to use OLSR (http://www.olsr.org) as the basic routing software. We work together with the software developers in testing and thinking about improvements.

To aide beginning users in setting up their own transmitter, we have build software that can run of a standard accesspoint. This software can be downloaded from our website. We also invite other groups to use our software for their network (http://www.what-a-mesh.net).

Our software designed to ensure that:
- each client has its own routing to the Internet under agreements arrived at between users
- the network is flexible: a mobile client can move from one side of the district to the other without interrupting the connection
- the routing itself is flexible: you cannot assume all intermediate stations will be available all the time.

Ultimately the project is intended to lead to a wireless network in Oost that will be open to anyone wishing to take part. The project is an initiative of the "Wireless Oost Collective" and has no commercial background. The network is sponsored by Cyburg and the Open Source Software Lab Amsterdam, OSSL.

For the frequency (2.4 Ghz) and transmission power (0.1 watt) no licence is required. With current technology, transfer rates of about 54 mbit/s are possible, about 50 times as much as a normal cable or DSL provider offers at the time of writing.

The network of Wireless Oost can be used by its users for the exchange of all sorts of information. P2P file sharing and the broadcast of self-produced radio and television are possible, so is digital telephony. Also, the network can be used for public events to offer broadband Internet on location.

The people in Amsterdam (in general) benefit from having yet another alternative way to connect to others in the city and the internet. Originally the project's focus was also on cheap internet for people with a small income, but since other ways of connecting to the internet have become cheaper, the main benefit is now in it's freedom from the traditional customer-isp relationship.
The software we develop and test is even more useful in environments where internet connections are not so easily available as in the main European cities. Similar projects, using the collective knowledge of community wireless projects around the globe, have been started in developing countries and Eastern European cities.

The project was build in cooperation with ASCII internet workspace, Amsterdam (http://scii.nl). ASCII functions as a meeting space for volunteers with a technical background and interest. The start of Wireless Oost was financially supported by Cyburg. After that the project depends for 100% on volunteer work, mainly by people who are also active in ASCII.

Wireless Oost
Amsterdam
The Netherlands
http://www.amsterdam-wireless.nl
Jaap Vermaas, tel. +31 6 41780834

11/10/2004

case

Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment > Digital services

Internet access