pghwireless - Forums

The Future of Municipal Broadband Wireless

bbowman — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:11:53 -0400

Hi All,

Native Burgher living down here in Delray Beach, FL. and wanted to chime in on some stuff that may interest some people...

I wrote a white paper about the future of municipal broadband wireless and it has been picked up by GovTech. http://www.govtech.com/dc under 'Special Focus', article 'Broadband Future'

It talks about 3.65 WiMax (coming soon to Delray using AirSpan), but mainly about how the FCC screwed up the 2.5GHz rules and the 700MHz auction.

Hope all is well up er' and GO PENS!

Brad
http://www.accessdelray.org/Broadband+Future.html
http://www.accessdelray.org/Local+Governments.html

Academic Research on Wireless Community Networks

Cédric Calvignac — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:31:49 -0500

Hello,

I'm a French PhD student in sociology. My research focuses on "innovations made by and for users". I have decided to particularly focus on "Wireless Community Networks" which are illustrative of a new type of approach more autonomous, alternative and civic.
For the last two years, I have been interviewing French members of "Wifi Community Networks"; I talked with them about their commitment and about the life of their project. Now, I carry on with my research and I propose you to answer to my questionnaire. This questionnaire will enable me to gather data on a wider population: members of European and North American "Wireless Communities".

Great Wireless Position In Pittsburgh area

cwoods — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:14:45 -0400

Anyone with strong Wireless skills please contact me asap.
Chris Woods
TEKsystems
412.919.3907
cwoods@teksystems.com

Cannot connect to Wifi Pittsburgh with a Mac

joshbpa — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 08:00:49 -0400

Hello,

Can anyone connect to WifiPittsburgh with a Macbook? I am able to connect and get an IP address, but I cannot connect to anything. I can't even ping the gateway.

Thanks for your help-

FON gives away 10k wireless routers

drewzhrodague — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:23:11 -0500

I saw on bOINGbOING yesterday that
FON is giving away 10k wireless routers to Americans. FON is a Spanish company which seems to be using a similar technique to boingo or Sputnik, where users share their internet connections via wireless routers, provided by the company.

Pittsburgh's Golden Age

benjibalix — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:09:30 -0400

Pittsburgh is on the verge of a golden age as our economy makes the transition from industrialism to commercial technicracy. The city is a hub of research and new ideas and has the greatest potential for economic and cultural growth in the world!

MAC Login versus PC

reedme36 — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:08:12 -0400

Has anyone else had trouble logging into this site from a MAC? I can do it easily enough from my PC, but my laptop login gives me an error. IDEAS?

Downtown WiFi Activated

drewzhrodague — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 11:04:52 -0400

Looks like Pittsburgh finally activated the city-wide Wi-Fi network yesterday. Two hours for free per user per day.

Post Gazette: City Launches Downtown WiFi, offering two free hours of access daily

Comment on WPLUG post on WiFi "Borrowing"

curlynoodle — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 09:02:27 -0500

I find it rather silly that with today's security hype, protecting PCs against viruses and other malware, many people don't bother to place some degree of security on their wireless networks. I have a super-cheap CompUSA labeled router/AP, which I purchased for $18 a year or so ago, and even it supports WEP. I know, WEP is weak, but so is a deadbolt lock in a wooden door frame, just kick it in. Any type of security/encryption can and should be viewed as a "Private - Do Not Enter" sign, signaling strangers to request entry, or keep out.

That said, I am somewhat two sided on the idea of "borrowing" access via a random, insecure WLAN. Yes, it can be seen as an invitation to share access. But, let me make an analogy. On a warm, comfortable spring day, you may open your house or apartment windows and door(s) to let in the breeze. Now is this an invitation for a stranger to come in and sit on your living room couch and "borrow" access to HBO or your DVD collection? IMO, even though you can detect and access an insecure WLAN, it should be viewed as someone's private property. Unless of course, a sign is posted in their window that says something like "Get your free WiFI access here, SSID = AccessForAll".

Pittsburgh PUC Approves Wi-Fi in Monroeville

drewzhrodague — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:00:42 -0500

Yahoo is running a story about Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Approves Agreement to Allow Duquesne Broadband Wireless Internet Pilot in Monroeville. From the article: PUC approval enables Duquesne Broadband, a joint venture between BPL Global and DQE Communications Network Services, a subsidiary of Duquesne Light Holdings, to expand its BPL offer throughout the Duquesne Light service area in the coming months. Bandwidth over power-lines is a neat technology, and I'm happy to see that being used to distribute Wi-

Hierarchival Community Internet

Drew — Mon, 02 Sep 2002 14:35:10 -0400

Saw this in the BAWIA list, a Hierarchical Community Internet spec, I haven't read it yet.
Uncle Foobar spat this my way a little while ago: http://doc.weblogs.com/
it's about 1/3 way down

Excellent analysis of Powell's failure at the FCC

John Judis has an excellent analysis of what Michael Powell has not done, and what he HAS done - to prevent the spread of broadband throughout our country.� America - in comparison to South Korea or Canada - looks plain archaic and old fashioned.�� Tale a look at the chart I reprinted from Kevin Werbach - and you'll see the U.S. with 2.73% of the phone lines being DSL - compared to Korea's 26.14 - is just plain pathetic.

So Judis figures Powell is largely responsible for that - and I agree.�� But you gotta love that American brand of nepotism - it sure keeps us in the Dilbert zone.

War Flying in San Diego

andythepooh — Thu, 29 Aug 2002 14:23:48 -0400

From Arstechnica:

War driving is pass�. Pete Shipley of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group (BAWUG) was the early big name in war driving. He and others popularized cruising the highways and local streets with laptops and 802.11b NICs that would detect Wireless Access Points (APs), and GPS units to record the latitude and longitude at which they were noted. Last year at DefCon he delivered a presentation at the same time that NetStumbler, a windows based war driving tool, was rapidly gaining in popularity. Anyone who's done any war driving knows that about 60% - 80% of the wireless LANs out there haven't had the most basic steps taken to secure them, making them as difficult to "break" into as buying a wireless NIC and downloading free software. For a technical overview of Wireless security, check out this Blackpaper.

Full StoryLike many people, I spent more than my share of hours and dollars war driving last year. However, since I do not access the open networks I see, it quickly got boring. Early this year I retired NetStumbler, except for the occasional wireless audit at work. Then Tracy Reed posted an invitation to go war flying on the San Diego Wireless Users Group (SDWUG) mailing list. Now that was a cool idea, and something I just had to do! In all fairness, while we weren't the first to do this (some blokes in Oz beat us to it), Tracy made the suggestion at least a month before those Aussies posted their results.