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Re: [internetworkers] Town of Carrboro goes wireless

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  • From: Ian Meyer <ianmeyer AT mac.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Town of Carrboro goes wireless
  • Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 15:32:24 -0400
thats cool....ill forward that to my dad who has access to sign making equipment, and see if he can make me one for my dorm room! w00t!

ian


On Sep 5, 2003, at 2:54 PM, David R.Matusiak wrote:

ask and ye shall receive...

<tocwireless.jpg>

On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 10:30 AM, Ian Meyer wrote:

they have signs that are the )(? does anyone have a picture of these things?

thats cool

ian

On Tuesday, August 12, 2003, at 8:08, Paul Jones wrote:

http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-380593.html

Carrboro slowly expands wireless Internet access to Carr Mill Mall

By Isaac Groves, The Herald-Sun
August 11, 2003   7:40 pm

CARRBORO -- Slowly but surely, Carrboro is joining cities like Paris, New
York and Winston-Salem in providing free wireless Internet access in
select parts of town.

"We'll start with downtown and test that out and see if people are
receptive to it," said James Harris, Carrboro's economic development
director. "If people are receptive to it, we'll go from there."

Having finished the wireless network in Town Hall and the Century Center,
Carrboro and its information and technology officer, Andy Vogel, are
extending the network across Weaver Street to Carr Mill Mall.

Harris says he would like to see the wireless access area extend from
downtown and go east down Main Street toward Chapel Hill.

The wireless network allows anyone with a laptop computer equipped with a
wireless Ethernet card to have Internet access anywhere within the
200-foot range of a network antenna. The signs for the town's wireless
network, looking like two inverted brackets, let people know where the
network is available.

"People can walk in off the street with their laptops and access the
Internet," Vogel said.

For now, the signs only hang on the walls of Town Hall and the Century
Center. Vogel is recruiting volunteers to extend the service off of town
property for the first time.

Wireless Internet access, or "Wi-Fi," has been in the works in Carrboro
for a while now, but the town hasn't had the funds to build the network
all at once.

"The town of Carrboro doesn't have a lot of money, but we have a lot of
good people who can help," Vogel said. "We have people volunteering from
Chapel Hill who don't even live here because they think it's a neat idea."

So far, Vogel has gotten 12 volunteers from his announcements on the town
of Carrboro Wireless listserv, and says if half that many actually show up
to do the work, he can probably get done by the end of September or early
October.

Vogel plans to use an open-source, UNIX-like operating system that he
says is hard to hack, and a system of Cisco wireless ports. The antennas
are two or three times the size of a TV remote control and plug into
fiber-optic cables.

The signal radiates about 200 feet, and Vogel says it is safe for people.
According to the NYC Wireless Web site, the signal is one-sixth the power
of a mobile phone and less powerful than what leaks from the average
microwave oven.

A wireless network is part of the town's overall effort to get more
information-based businesses into Carrboro, not because the businesses
want to use Carrboro's network, but because information-technology workers
like to live in places where such things are available.

"It can draw a type of person, a young person interested in technology,"
Vogel said.

Carrboro already has the infrastructure in the ground for wireless, in
the form of the $99,000 fiber-optic network it installed at Town Hall, the
Century Center and the public works yard on Smith Level Road about 3½
years ago. The antennas for the Cisco ports will connect to that
high-speed line.

"All it's costing the town is a little of our bandwidth," Vogel said.

Bandwidth, Vogel explains, is like a pipe that carries information to and
from the Internet. Much of the pipe's capacity goes unused in an average
day, and at night it's almost completely unused, so having residents take
advantage of wireless access is really just helping Carrboro get more for
its money.

The Carr Mill project is still in the planning stages, and Vogel doesn't
know how many antennas the mall will need. But he hopes to put the lawn
outside Weaver Street Market, the first floors of both Carr Mill buildings
and possibly the ice cream store across the parking lot within range of
the wireless network.

The businesses inside on the mall's first floor could use the wireless
service too, but it would not serve them very well because there will be
no "firewall" to protect their data from hackers.

"We don't want to provide something to the businesses in Carr Mill
necessarily, but to the residents living near Carr Mill," Vogel said.
"Legally, we can't show favoritism for one business or another."

The advantage to Carr Mill businesses, Harris says, is the number of
potential customers drawn to the mall by the wireless network.

Vogel says he's not sure how much it will cost to make Carr Mill part of
the wireless network, but he says it won't be too much if he can get
enough skilled volunteers.

"It's not the hardware that costs, it's the human factor; it's the smart
people," Vogel said. "We'll make it work, we always do."

URL for this article:
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-380593.html

===================================================================== =====
Paul Jones
"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." Alasdair Gray
http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/
pjones AT ibiblio.org voice: (919) 962-7600 fax: (919) 962-8071
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