Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Guerrilla Network and Wireless Communities
It's an intriguing idea. Build an open source wireless mesh around the world that can be accessed for mobile and fixed communications, including data - thereby bypassing the commercial network. This, apparently, is what a good number of people have in mind. Sort of like a cross between old school shortwave hobbyists and social activists. (But maybe those were always crossed.)
This may not be news to you, but it is to me. I just came across two sites at the center of it. One of them is Guerilla.net, which describes its goal as being the establishment of
An Internet INDEPENDENT network free from Governments, commercial Internet service providers, telecommunications companies, and dubius Internet regulatory bodies.The other site is WirelessCommunities. This site is less clearly centralized, merely serving, apparently, as a locus of info about free culture wireless efforts around the world.
WirelessCommunities are popping up all over the world, here we maintain a list of all of the communities we've managed to find all over the world. If you know of another one please add it to the list.I wonder to what extent the two sites coincide, in terms of effort and personnel? In any event it's encouraging to think that people around the world are engaged in such a project. I'll definitely be looking further into this, and reporting back.
Note: This is a list of community wireless groups who are building free and open networks. If you are a commerical provider we wish you the best of luck but this is not the list for you. Thanks.
