Personal Telco Movement
= Aims to develop a wireless infrastructure without the intervention of telecommunication companies
Examples
“On Nodeb.com, people list their open nodes, essentially inviting strangers to join a worldwide community of users. This site has more than 11,000 registered access points in the United States. Even if service providers can make it more difficult for users to share Internet access, techies will eventually find a way around them." (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/opinion/19CONL.html?th )
Wireless Commons in Hawaii
Here’s a description of what is happening in Hawaii, where a peer to peer wireless network is covering more than 300 square miles:
"Now people all over the island are tapping into Wiecking's wireless links, surfing the Web at speeds as much as 100 times greater than standard modems permit. High school teachers use the network to leapfrog a plodding state effort to wire schools. Wildlife regulators use it to track poachers. And it's all free. Wiecking has built his network through a coalition of educators, researchers, and nonprofit organizations; with the right equipment and passwords, anyone who wants to tap in can do so, at no charge." (http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,38492,00.html)
More Information
See also: Wireless Commons
An article about the advances of the "Personal Telco" movement in the U.S., at http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0615/p01s03-ussc.html ; home page at http://www.personaltelco.net/static/index.html
The Wireless Commons reading list:
Additional Reading
• “Radio Revolution: The Coming Age of Unlicensed Wireless" by Kevin Werbach, published by the New America Foundation. [1]
• Building Wireless Community Networks. 2001. by Rob Flickenger. O’Reilly.
• Wired/Unwired: The Urban Geography of Digital Networks. 2003. by Anthony Townsend. Unpublished PhD dissertation. [2] (http://www.wirelesscommons.org/ )
Municipal and local wireless networks
- Reports by Business Week, on wireless and WiFi developments: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_40/b3902057_mz011.htm http://www.businessweek.com/technology/tc_special/03wireless2.htm, http://www.businessweek.com/technology/tc_special/tc_04wifi.htm
- Cities like Philadelphia are developing free wireless broadband systems for their citizens, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54754-2004Sep1.html?
- Muniwireless.com – best site for news on developments in unlicensed wireless at the municipal level worldwide.