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9.03.08
AW67 Up!
Dave has done an incredible job of singlehandedly building and placing AW's latest node on the air. AW67 is located in the west end of the main island fairly close to Alameda Point. AW67 has a 10 Mbit/s. link to AW56 (the USS Hornet) This AW67 link to AW56 is far superior to the existing AW56-AW4 link. Therefore, we have decided to switch the AW56 uplink over to AW67, from AW4. AW67 will now provide Internet access for AW56. AW67 uses a mast-mounted node router, and is now the second AW node to run the pcengines ALIX single board computer. AW67 runs the Voyage Linux OS, and is powered by a pair of 600 mW Engenius EMP-8602-Plus-S /a/b/g radios.
7.27.08
AW66 Up!
Don has placed AW's latest node on the air. AW66 sits atop a 3-story home on the north shore of Bay Farm Island (BFI), east of AW4. AW66 provides coverage along the south side of the main island as well as penetration into the middle areas of Harbor Bay Isle. AW66 uses a mast-mounted node router, and is the first AW node to run the pcengines ALIX single board computer. AW66 runs a Voyage Linux OS. AW66 also is the first AW node to house an embedded computer inside a Pacific Wireless Rootena. The Rootenna is a directional panel antenna "with a pouch" - a compartment inside the antenna enclosure that houses the computerboard. This way, the antenna doubles as a weather tight enclosure for the router. AW66 is powered by a pair of 400 mW Engenious /a/b/g radios.
3.20.08
Alameda Hospital Up!
AW61 is our latest node, now atop the 8-story Administration building at Alameda Hospital. AW61 is ideally situated in the center of the main island as the third highest node elevation in the AW Network. This node will be able to reach many locations in the central portion of the main island as well as to link many more distant portions of Alameda and surrounding cities. AW61 is using 350 mW Mikrotik /a/b/g radios. AW61 is the second key node funded solely from donations to AW.
2.9.08
USS Hornet Up!
AW56 is our latest node, now up aboard the USS Hornet. The AW56 antennas are mounted at the top of the island at the level of the base of the mast. This is a key node, with the highest "flatland" elevation in the AW Network at well over 100' above sea level. AW55 is of course higher, atop the Oakland hills. AW56 is the first node to use Mikrotik 350 mW /a/b/g radios. AW56 is the first node funded by donations to AW, and is the fruition of many members' labor. This node can reach nearly any spot in Alameda.
10.17.07
AW65 Up!
AW65 is our newest node, now up at just to the west of Alameda High School. Tony has done a great job of getting his node designed, installed, configured and operating. AW65 uplinks to AW63, which uplinks to AW4.
4.17.07
Airport Node Up!
AW62 is our newest node, now up at the private plane hangers of Oakland Airport's North Field. Bill, Joe and Paul have done a fantastic job getting this node on the air. It uplinks to AW55 using a 24 dBi parabolic antenna and intends to serve the broadband needs of private pilots at the airport. This node had to successfully overcome AW's first instance of intentional radio interference - from a nearby industrial plant.
4.09.07
Lucky 13 Up!
AW63 is Lucky 13 (formerly The Buckhorn), at the intersection of Park and Encinal, is AW's newest node. AW63 has a 3.5 mbit/s. link to AW4. Doug and Dan put 400 mW Senao a/b/g radios into this router. AW4 is in the process of converting two of it's radios to the same model Senao. Once AW4 has a/b/g radios, testing will begin with /g speeds between AW1, AW4 and AW63. This will be our first 802.11g testing. We hope to see even faster data transfer speeds - perhaps approaching 20 Mbits/s. with the /g links.
10.10.06
Oakland Tower Up!
Welcome AW55. During the history of AW we have tried to spread our wings, first to SF and then via the Oakland hills, but we finally have a working node high up in the hills, from here we should be able to connect to the north end of the island instead of waiting for all the intermediary nodes to come online.
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WELCOME
Alameda Wireless is a user owned, community run, wireless network located in the city of Alameda, California. A community network is very different than most people are
accustomed to. It aims to create a fully redundant wireless mesh network covering the city of Alameda, which is open and
available to all. There are no fees involved to connect to the mesh. In order to connect, each person will create a node on
the network by purchasing their own wireless equipment from a merchant of their choosing, or with our help. Each node owner
will own their own equipment, it will not be owned by Alameda Wireless. Alameda Wireless is an association of like minded
people, who want to create a new last mile network, free of the restrictions of cable or phone lines. Each new person who
joins helps the network expand and grow, by allowing others to connect to the community network through their individually
owned equipment. It is helpful to think of Alameda Wireless as just another pathway, similar to a phone line or cable, to get
broadband to your home. It is like a local area network, except that it will cover the entire city, without wires.
Every person who is part of the community network is free to choose their service to access the Internet. In this respect,
Alameda Wireless is just a "pipe" that carries traffic to an Internet service provider and is not itself an Internet Service
Provider. Imagine User A, B, C, D, E, and F all interconnected wirelessly across the city. User A may use free bandwidth into
the Internet donated to Alameda Wireless users, supplied by a group such as SFLan. User B may choose to form a separate
association to buy perhaps a faster line and share the costs with User C and D. User E may keep their existing Cable or DSL
Internet connection. User F may choose to only access the local content on the network and have no Internet connection. All
these users are part of Alameda Wireless, and they all route each other's traffic, but they can all choose their own way to get
to the Internet. The community wireless network gives users the ability, for the first time in history, to freely choose which
services and providers they elect to use (or not use) from among the full array of Internet services, Internet Service
Providers, and Internet backbone providers. The community wireless network finally delivers free market competition for
Internet services to the end user.
If you'd like to get involved, please join the Mailing List and add yourself to the Node Map as an interested party.
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