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Hi. Nice website, very impressive and a great resource though after
working through some of the pages here i am still at a loss as to what
possibilites might be gained from attaching to one of the nodes.
Presently i can only guess it might be useful to connect to other
friends (who would also need to attached to a node) or to allow people
to piggyback someone elses internet connections (perhaps for instance
if somebodies dsl connection dropped out) .. is there a collection of
other uses i haven't thought of yet .. would it perhaps be an idea to
highlight these uses somewhere.
What wireless adaptors are everyone using? I'm looking at setting up
an onmi antenna to cover my local neighbourhood and am curious to know
which client adaptors have proven themselevs to work reliably. I'm
particularly interested in USB adaptors to keep things simple... I
don't wanna be cracking open computer cases to install pci cards. I
also wanna ovoid having to worry about external antennas (on the
client side)... so I'm having trouble finding usb adaptors with better
than average antennas built in. Anyone got any ideas/recomendations?
Q: Is the network compatible with 802.11g or draft 802.11n devices,
and does using these devices bring any speed or coverage benefit?
A: ?
Q: So I'm sitting in my car somewhere near a Melbourne Wireless node.
It's open and my laptop's configured by dhcp... what now?
A: That depends on how the node-owner has configured the node.
Generally, you simply get an IP address from the node. The first place
to look for content is to type the IP address of the DHCP server that
gave you the IP address into your web-browser. Most node-owners put
webpages on their nodes that should give you some clue as to what to
do next. If that doesn't help, the next time you have Internet access,
look at the Melbourne Wireless site and browse the Node Mapping
Database and look for some IP addresses to try next time you're on the
Melbourne Wireless network.
Q: What sort of content is on the network?
A: Mainly webpages put up by node-owners describing their nodes.
There are also some game-servers and some people are experimenting
with Voice-Over-IP servers and video streaming.
Q: What services are provided and how are they used in cool ways?
A: See above. Remember that Melbourne Wireless is a member-driven and
run network. The services provided are provided by members on a
volunteer basis.
Q: Is there a MelbWooogle [1].com search engine? How about an
old-skool text index?
A: That's a good idea and someone probably has done something like
that. As previously mentioned, some node-owners create their own
web-pages and some of them do have a kind of index of other reachable
nodes.
Q: Is this all just some weird art installation that nobody yet
understands?
A: Interesting question. Please elaborate.
Q: What's the policies around slamming bandwidth by, for example,
transferring 4.7Gb files point to point? Surely, that must annoy
somebody along the route
A: There is no network-wide policy. If some node-owner gets annoyed
along the route, he/she will probably just implement some
Quality-of-Serice technical solution - i.e. bandwidth hogs get lowest
priority.
Q: Can I build an eCommerce store on MW?
A: You could try, but I wouldn't advise it at this point - the
network is still quite small. If you sold cheap wireless gear you
might do OK though.
Q: In reality, should I just implement my own DHCP, DNS, WEB, EMAIL,
IRC, eMule, DC++, FTP, VOIP, Gaming and LDAP server incase one day the
guy i'm relying on moves house?
A: A fine idea. The ultimate aim is for there to be enough nodes so
that most people are connected to at least 2 or more nodes at most
times. Efforts are currently underway to make building a node cheap
and easy with little or no software configuration. Those who want to
build something more complicated are free to do so, but the entire
network should grow more quickly with a quick-and-easy base node
model.
Q: Hey... what aren't we using LDAP?
A: That would require a bunch of volunteers to come to an agreement
about the structure of the directory, and then the same volunteers
would need to maintain it. We're all about low- or zero-maintenance
soultions here at Melbourne Wireless.
A: Am I annoying everyone yet?
Q: Not at all! Keep trying!
Q: i am new to all this but i have a big tree im talking about 25-35
meters and i was thinking, what if i put an antenna and some ap's up
there. Yesterday i found you guys from a google search and i would
love to get involved. i am redoing my entire network as i am having
house renovated soon and will be having all new cisco routers and
access points internaly.
My question is what do i need to get hooked up to the network and
maby act as a relay, while still maintaining security to my local
network. The other thing is how much bandwith does the network have?
would it be big enough to take 2 or 3 voip lines.
Q: How active is the network, How many members are activley involved
and is it all still up-to-date? (I've seen so many things dated very
old, are prices and availability still the same?)
Q: 25-05-08 [2] Forgive my ignorance But saying that I have just the
one antenna on my mast... does that limit the number of other nodes I
can be connected to, to one other node? (I.E. do you have to fly extra
dishes/ antennas up on your mast (especially if they are directional
ones) to tie into other nodes or if you had 2 nodes in the same
eye-line vicinity could you tie into both with just one antenna?)
Q: 25-05-08 [3] Also for every extra antenna i put up... would i then
have to employ additional routers for each?
Links:
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[1] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?MelbWooogle
[2] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?25-05-08
[3] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?25-05-08
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