Of particular note was the significant forward progress that is being made to create a simple, unified mesh router (built on OpenWRT, OLSR, and Wifidog). We’ve got a bunch of test units and will be trying it out soon.

Steven Mansour has posted a great slideshow of the conference, and there are plenty of Flickr photos and Twitter posts.

On three Saturdays in January, Dana Spiegel, Rob Kelley and Laura Forlano each respectively presented to a class of students at Monroe College in the Bronx.

On February 11, Dana Spiegel was on the “Spectrum Spectacular: Community Wireless and Smashing Your Way into the Thrill Ride of the Century” panel at the Grassroots Media Conference. He and Laura Forlano met with Dharma Dailey and Hannah Sassaman from Prometheus Radio Project about potential future collaboration while participating in a cantenna-building workshop.

In February, Laura Forlano and Dana Spiegel completed a detailed online survey and provided additional background information for a case study on NYCwireless as part of the World Bank infoDev’s Local Open Access Networks project.

In February, Dana Spiegel and Laura Forlano met with representatives from Edinburgh’s community wireless organization.

On February 28, Laura Forlano presented at Wireless Day at Temple University in Philadelphia. Other panelists included: Derek Pew (Interim CEO, Wireless Philadelphia), Munir Mandviwalla (Executive Director, Irwin L. Gross E-Business Institute, Fox School of Business), Nathan Solomon (Principal and Co-Founder, GameFlood) and Steve Bull (CEO, Cutlass).

From March 31-April 2, Dana Spiegel and Laura Forlano will present at the Second Community Wireless Summit in St. Charles, MO.

NYCwireless has spoken with representatives from Fon, WBAI and Prometheus Radio Project.

New Projects
On March 4, in partnership with Solar One, New York City’s first solar powered “Green Energy, Arts, and Education Center”, Rob Kelley and Dana Spiegel conducted a site survey and installed a solar-powered wireless access point in Stuyvesant Cove Park with a team of volunteers from Monroe College.

NYCwireless continues to be in discussion on plans for five new potential park projects with local businesses and community organizations.

Technology Development
NYCwireless is actively marketing its SuperNode (a.k.a. WiFiDog) access points among members, local businesses and community organizations with assistance from volunteers from Monroe College. Members are encouraged to upgrade their access points to SuperNode (contact help@nycwireless.net).

Policy
In February, Dana Spiegel and Laura Forlano briefed California Senator Dean Florez on municipal wireless policy and projects.

Resources
Wireless Networking for the Developing World, a collaborative book to which Dana Spiegel contributed following the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructure (www.wsfii.org).

NYCwireless has added a wiki-page on Uses for Municipal Wireless Networks. We welcome ideas and brainstorming for all those who are interested.

Bway.net – in new home (finally!):
568 Broadway at Prince St, NE corner
Suite 404
New York, NY 10012

(Please note: Bway.net’s offices are still under construction — we apologize in advance for our appearance. Also, everybody will need to sign-in in the lobby.)

Agenda:

1. Cybermoor: Community Wireless Broadband Network from Rural Northern England; presentation by Daniel Heery
2. Laura Forlano will brief us on World Summit for a Free Information Infrastructure conference held earlier this month in London.
3. WifiDog: Rob Kelley will distribute WifiDogs to anyone who brings us a Linksys WRT54G — version 4 or earlier — (please let Rob know ahead of time if you’re bringing one rob at nycwireless.net)

Cybermoor: presentation by Daniel Heery, Project Manager for Cybermoor.

Cybermoor is run as a Community Co-operative and is a non-profit making community enterprise. Daniel Heery will discuss how this was accomplished. More (Moor?) details:
http://www.cybermoor.org/
http://www.seeonline2.net/broadband/CommunitySelfHelp/CaseStudies/AlstonCybermoor/

• real-time monitoring of node status
• managed user authentication
• splash page and login page hosting
• web-based content management (though we haven’t quite figured it out yet!)
• traffic statistics for each node (user counts, total throughput, and traffic by time of day)

Our federation now looks like this: http://auth.nycwireless.net/hotspots_map.php

Our goal is to look like this: http://auth.ilesansfil.org/hotspots_map.php

We want YOU to upgrade to a WifiDog. If you run an NYCwireless hotspot, we want you to switch to a WifiDog unit. If you’re planning to put up a New York hotspot, we want you make WifiDog part of your setup.

For more info on flashing a Linksys so it can run WifiDog, please see:

• Our handy checklist
• OpenWRT’s docs
• Ile Sans Fil’s docs

But wait! We’ll trade you! If you bring us a brand new plain jane Linksys WRT54G or GS, we’ll give you back a preconfigured Linksys WifiDog.

Thanks and we look forward to hearing from you! Congratulations to all who have contributed so far, and to future members and users!

Please post this notice to all interested friends and related lists.

When: TONIGHT!! Wed. June 29th, 2005 at 7:15 PM
Where: Bway.net, 459 Broadway at Grand St., 2nd Floor.

Agenda

• NYCwireless Connected Neighborhoods by Dana Spiegel & Joe Plotkin
• WifiDog demo: a tool for managing wireless networks, by Rob Kelley (and friends)
• WirelessLondon: A software toolkit by Jo Walsh (no, not that Joe Walsh)
• Breakout sessions: small group discussions follow the presentations, from Novice to Advanced.

Announcing: NYCwireless Connected Neighborhood Initiative

Presentation by Dana Spiegel (Executive Director) and Joe Plotkin (Board member)

We will present NYCwireless’ plans to help under-served communities by building Open Community Networks. Expanding on the success of the three Community Access projects over the last 2 years., this will be a much more ambitious effort, and require substantial financial support thru donations.

The NYCwireless Connected Neighborhood initiative will serve to demonstrate that we all benefit when all citizens are connected. Consequently, we intend Connected Neighborhoods to act as a model and catalyst for widespread participation by government, community groups and citizens of all ages.

NYCwireless will introduce our Inaugural Open Community Network, and outline the deployment plans as well as the tools and training that will be part of this project.

Topics covered will include:

Jo Walsh:

http://map.wirelesslondon.info is the thing we’ve just built which has wifidog-client support and provides a fair bit to look at…
http://mappinghacks.com has a pile of links to the geospatial oriented stuff we’ve done lately

Rob Kelley:

A chance to review WiFiDog in action–client and server–and then test out creating your own WiFiDog hotspot. There’s a five minute demo and then a working session after the presentations.

Wednesday, March 30th @ 7:15pm
Meeting is free and open to the public

Agenda

7:00 Networking
7:15 Introduction to NYCwireless and Speakers
7:30 Main Presentation: Presentation on IleSansFil’s hotspot program and the Open-Source project WifiDog. Speakers: Benoit Grégoire, Michael Lenczner, and Michelle Kasprzak of IleSansFil
8:45 Discussion and Breakout Sessions

Meeting Location

Bway.net
459 Broadway, 2nd Floor.
About 2 blocks north of Canal, near the corner of Grand St. On the west side of the street, then up one flight of stairs. Via subway (Canal Street stop): the J,M,N,Q,R,W,Z, and a bit further, but still on Canal is A,C,E,1,6,9.

Presentation on IleSansFil’s hotspot program and the Open-Source project WifiDog

Ile Sans Fil’s hotspot project is the deployment of numerous free Internet hotspots in public spaces (cafes, parks, community centers, libraries, etc.). This infrastructure allow us to disseminate local content (eg. arts, community news, local events). Future activities will involve the development of tools allowing citizens to create both temporary and permanent communities in public spaces. A key to our hotspot program is that free Internet access is only the first step.

The presentation will include 3 speakers:

1. Benoit Grégoire is the technical lead for IleSansFil. He will present WifiDog -a complete and embeddable captive portal solution (open-source, GPL) for wireless community groups which encourages local content and community applications.
2. Michael Lenczner is one of the founders of IleSansFil. He will talk about how and why the hotspots will privilege local community (use of wireless networks to enhance Third Places) as well as IISF’s future plans to use profiles, IM, and news syndication across groups of hotspots (grouped by physical geography or by interest).
3. Michelle Kasprzak is the Art Director for ISF. She will present on current and future projects using WifiDog to distribute/promote site-specific art and local artists.

About ISF

Île Sans Fil is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of a free communication infrastructure to strengthen local communities in the greater Montreal region. Île Sans Fil is both a technical development project and a grass roots community group, involving professionals and students from diverse fields. The vision of the group is to use wireless technology to both empower individuals and foster a sense of community.

A handicap accessible entrance is available if you send an e-mail letting us know ahead of time. If you have ideas for future speakers, please let us know.