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Announcement :: Education : Elections & Legislation : Media : Political-Economy : UCIMC : Urban Development |
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Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sascha Meinrath
Email: sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!)
Phone: (217)278-3933 |
07 Mar 2005
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"Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. AKA: How you're about to get completely screwed by the telecommunications industry and don't even know it."
Wednesday, 1-2:30pm
110 Speech & Hearing
901 South Sixth Street
Imagine a free wireless networking system that any municipality, company, or group of neighbors could easily set up themselves. Over the past half-decade, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) has been developing an open source, turnkey wireless networking solution that exceeds the functionality of many proprietary systems. CUWiN's vision is ubiquitous, extremely high-speed, low-cost networking for every community and constituency. Following in the footsteps of Linux and Firefox, CUWiN has focused on creating a low-cost, non-proprietary, user-friendly system. CUWiN's software will share connectivity across the network, allowing users to buy bandwidth in bulk and benefit from the cost savings.
Unfortunately, existing telecommunications incumbents are working overtime to lock customers into expensive, pitifully inadequate service agreements and deploying telecommunications infrastructures using yesteryear's technology. Their business models are antiquated, but guess who has to pay for their inefficiencies? That's right, you do. This presentation will walk participants through an introduction to wireless technologies, discuss some of the social benefits of Community Wireless Networks, and focus on some of the more dastardly tactics being undertaken _right now_ by major telecom incumbents to screw you over (e.g., last week an ammendment to the Illinois telecom rewrite removed the language that the law's purpose is to "provide for fair, just and reasonable rates"). |
 "Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
"Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. AKA: How you're about to get completely screwed by the telecommunications industry and don't even know it."
Wednesday, 1-2:30pm
110 Speech & Hearing
901 South Sixth Street
Imagine a free wireless networking system that any municipality, company, or group of neighbors could easily set up themselves. Over the past half-decade, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) has been developing an open source, turnkey wireless networking solution that exceeds the functionality of many proprietary systems. CUWiN's vision is ubiquitous, extremely high-speed, low-cost networking for every community and constituency. Following in the footsteps of Linux and Firefox, CUWiN has focused on creating a low-cost, non-proprietary, user-friendly system. CUWiN's software will share connectivity across the network, allowing users to buy bandwidth in bulk and benefit from the cost savings.
Unfortunately, existing telecommunications incumbents are working overtime to lock customers into expensive, pitifully inadequate service agreements and deploying telecommunications infrastructures using yesteryear's technology. Their business models are antiquated, but guess who has to pay for their inefficiencies? That's right, you do. This presentation will walk participants through an introduction to wireless technologies, discuss some of the social benefits of Community Wireless Networks, and focus on some of the more dastardly tactics being undertaken _right now_ by major telecom incumbents to screw you over (e.g., last week an ammendment to the Illinois telecom rewrite removed the language that the law's purpose is to "provide for fair, just and reasonable rates"). |
This work licensed under a
Creative Commons license |
Comments
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Re: Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
by Eager Beaver
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Mar 2005
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While the technology CuWin provides may be better, and the cost may be lower, and the whiz factor may be higher, one thing is critically missing...
...support. Who does grandma call when her wireless node doesn't work, assuming she doesn't hack linux in her spare time?
NO internet service is bulletproof, and the reason people pay for it, and may continue to pay for it even if their exists a free alternative, is to have someone they can call when things screw up. And even if the service provided by existing ISPs is sometimes pathetic, at least it exists.
So how will a community wireless network provide service? If the answer is "we'll all help each other out as volunteers" then I have to say I'm skeptical, because the geek community is notoriously unwilling to help non-geeks (lusers).
If the answer is "we'll hire people locally at a living wage to staff a phone bank" then that's great, and my next question is "where does the money come from to do that if the service is free? Grant writing? Taxes?
Thanks for any responses. |
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Re: Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
by Joe Futrelle
futrelle (nospam) shout.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
08 Mar 2005
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> So how will a community wireless network provide service? If the answer is "we'll all help each other out as volunteers" then I have to say I'm skeptical, because the geek community is notoriously unwilling to help non-geeks (lusers).
Our local techies are generous with their time and expertise. For instance CLAM used to offer free computer classes to the community; they only stopped because they weren't getting enough students signing up, but we always had enough volunteer teachers. CLAM was able to get local businesses to donate space and computers so we could have a teaching lab, so costs were minimal.
Grant funding is a reasonable model for community network services. Prairienet is supported by grants and by its very small usage fee, and has been a going concern for quite some time. |
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Re: Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
by uh-nawn
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Mar 2005
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Not to mention the fact that the incumbent broadband ISP's don't actually have to provide you working service, despite your paying for it. Have you ever read Ameritech/Yahoo DSL's T&C's (Terms & Conditions)? It basically says they don't actually owe you consistently working service or a refund when the service is down, but you still always owe them your monthly payment.
And, have you ever called for "support" for tech services from the phone or cable companies? In every city, they are always the nadir of "customer service" as compared to any other business.
The comparison E.Beaver is trying to make is rigged. That is, that a "pay to play", for-profit system is better, and that a free, community, or city-gov't supported system will be worse because Grandma doesn't have anyone to call.
There's really not much the Big TeleComm Co's can do to stop these public mesh net's, _yet_. They're getting laws passed in every state as fast as possible to prohibit any city from funding them. But there's nothing to prevent every (cooperative) Tom, Dick, and Mary from running a mesh-enabled transceiver in his/her attic.
The next thing the TeleComm's will do, is to make these free, public mesh nodes patently illegal. So the T&C's of your garden variety broadband contract will specifically prohibit "sharing" your connection. They'll use transceiver location tech to locate the "rogue" mesh-net nodes, and simply turn-off the service to the houses they detect that are communicating with the mesh.
The Big TeleComm Co's own the pipes leading outta town, or at least at some/every point upstream. They will fight tooth-and-nail to keep charging individuals $30-50/month, per person, as opposed to letting ten $50/month subscribers share the wireless mesh net they create with 200 users.
The battle is ongoing, and it's not looking hopeful. Encryption and "pirate" nodes are gonna be the norm, and this is going to get very ugly in the next few years. Big TeleComm has already locked-out city gov't's from helping out, the only thing left is to make it illegal to share an individually contracted broadband connection. That step seems simply trivial; I'm surprised it hasn't already happened.
They'll just change the contract slightly, locate any rogue mesh nodes, and sever service to those residences. Over with a whimper, not a bang.
And I'm all for the CUWiN effort, 100%. I just don't see a feasible way to "win", despite the software being nearly perfected, open source'd, and so communal and Progressive. Big TeleComm still owns the main pipes. "The Cloud", the primary public Internet, is owned, and not by The People. But owned instead by Big Biz, which also owns our state and federal govt's, in effect.
If free, public mesh net's flourish, it'll have to be by the encrypted pirate model. It'll be very adversarial, much like the P2P wars with the RIAA/MPAA. Stealth, encryption, superior tech, and open-source shared far and wide may be the only hope. |
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Re: Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
by "non-geek"
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Mar 2005
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What is AKA? The wirelessing of the world will take long if we do not keep up with the geek terms. |
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Re: Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
by luser
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Mar 2005
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uh-nawn --
i am sure you know everything about this technology. but reading your note, i feel sorry for myself. i just use net at urbana free.
hopefully i will learn when i attend the talk tomorrow. |
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Re: Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
by 5
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Mar 2005
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Will this be recorded for WEFT or videotaped for UPTV? I would be interested in this as well but can't leave work for that long.... |
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Re: Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
by wifi geek
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Mar 2005
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uh-nawn, I am not as pessimistic as you are. I agree with you that broadband providers can screw individuals with restrictive T&C's, but we can just band together and buy bandwidth wholesale, just like ISP's do. the big pipe owners are not interested in turning down large customers.
with respect to the pernicious legislation currently under consideration I think we need to fight that stuff tooth and nail, just like we fought for LPFM. and we'll get it. for every lefty group that wants to operate a radio station or ISP, there are several right-wing and religious outfits that want to do it, too, and they don't want the restrictive environment any more than we do. so we can get bipartisan support for small local ISPs. |
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Re: Wirelessing the Revolution: Participatory Media, Wireless Networking, and Community Empowerment. |
by luser
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Mar 2005
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a subert talk. now i know something about wireless that I can at least talk about in a competent manner.
sascha, are there other cities looking to CU for leadership on their wireless attempts?
power to you. |
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