I've recently been doing some reading about the 'freethenet' campaign in San Francisco and the Meraki mesh network devices.
Let me say firstly, I'm not assosiated with Meraki in any way - these are my own thoughts.

Usually, I'd find the whole idea of community driven wifi networks...well...scary, but the Meraki 'system' seems to inspire something in people akin to the open source software movements...just look at Firefox. It certainly has inspired me. Although I've often been interested in community projects, none have captured my attention long enough or provided me with the interest needed to devote what little spare time I have. Perhaps this particular project is a little closer to home given the state of the Internet in Australia and being a Mac user...but I'll get to that shortly.

There are groups starting to pop up to help co-ordinate the distribution of the Meraki hardware, Free Australia Wireless as an example. I commend their efforts, although I'm slightly (selfishly) disappointed that there is no Free Melbourne Wireless website as yet, I'm sure in time, that will come - there already is a Facebook group and a Google groups mail list. The great thing about this is the idea that 'you' can help without being a member of any particular group or require any special skills. You are free to add devices, and bandwidth to the mesh as you see fit.

The Sydney arm of Free Australia Wireless got sick of waiting for the government to provide the city-wide wifi they were promised and went about bulk ordering Meraki hardware to do it themselves. Free Canberra Wireless are steaming ahead too, their advantage being the city is much smaller than Sydney or Melbourne so things can happen, and happen fast.

This must be a scary idea for companies like Telstra. In the news again today yet another victory speech from the telco that they have 'successfully enabled ADSL2+ in 900 exchanges'!. That's fantastic news, but 'the mob' is already starting to 'route around' Telstra, their ludicrous pricing and various attitude problems. The balance of power can rapidly tip back in favour to the general public, although it is a way away at this point - the potential is there.

As a Mac user, especially now, wireless just comes with the territory. If you have any modern Mac, you have wifi. If you have an iPod touch or an iPhone wifi is a staple. While cheap wifi may be more common elsewhere, in Australia we are quite undernourished (compared to my perception of the demand) when it comes to free or near-free access to the Net where ever and when ever you need it. This looks as good a way forward as I've seen and the best thing about Meraki is its simplicity. Something that is at the core of the Mac and therefore should be easy for us as Mac users to relate too.

Over at netlife.com.au there is a brilliant blog entry about their personal experience over the first 5 days of contributing to the Meraki mesh. This guy has met his neighbours and already earned $20 to recoup purchase of the hardware. It's not perfect by any stretch, but what is? All you can do is have a go. From the blog: "And to adapt a phrase from the Treasurer of the last Federal Government: "Get a Meraki for yourself, one for your husband and one for the country."

As I said earlier, you don't need to be associated with any group to contribute, but there are some advantages not least of which is bulk buying. Given the friendly and knowledgeable community here at Mactalk I thought it would be interesting to open this up to you and hear your thoughts, comments and ideas on contributing to 'freethenet' with Meraki here in Australia (or wherever else you might be!).

Not only is this a way to contribute to your local community and the wider community but also a way to do something for yourself. I'm sure I'm not the only one that wished my iPod touch wifi worked at 'that cafe at the corner'.

Thanks,
Z

Bulk-Buy round 2 Interest:
Zillatron
purana
rickyd
waynie
msilsby
decryption
charlesmac

It's a cool idea, but too expensive for me. Maybe someone (else) could organise a group buy? I'd probably want to get my hands on one or two..!

I've always thought that home wifi routers should have a section called 'wifi sharing', where you can just tick a box and create a second SSID which is firewalled and separate from your own network. Then you could nominate a percentage of your bandwidth and download capacity to share (perhaps per each MAC address).

There are other solutions similar to this, like ZoneCD.

Jeremy

I explored using some of the units, but as suggested the pro versions cost too much and the bandwidth limiting is limited to 20kb/s outbound minimum. So I can't throttle the outbound limit to anything lower.

That is impractical. Especially since I only have 25kb/s outbound on my line as it is.

So I ditched using them. Although have been playing around with a Linksys WRT54GL running dd-wrt. Hoping to setup a unsecured wireless segment which will only have web access to the net through a squid proxy for nearby neighbours to use (and to share some other resources on that segment).

As much as I like wi-fi, I think 3G/HSDPA is reducing its usefulness in public areas.

The price of a 1GB HSDPA plan now is only $15/month. That's not a lot of coin for internet access, anywhere, at speeds faster than most home ADSL connections.

Where I can see these being cool is to try and blanket the CBD in wi-fi, grass-roots style

I'd love to buy 200 of them and just stick them around Melbourne's CBD and inner-city, hah

Meraki units are now prohibited in Israel, as their power output makes them illegal under their new (as of October 2007) Non Ionizing Radiation law.

Hot on the heels of the discovery that cellular technology causes insomnia and Germany's move to legislate the banning of DECT phones comes a report from neurosurgeon and cancer researcher Dr Vini Khurana that cellular technology "is more dangerous than smoking or asbestos".

You really want to smother your environment in stuff that's going to unravel your DNA?

I agree - but 18 months (even 24 months ago) what were the prices like?

Part of the reason why i like this idea so much is the that exact pressure that it's able to put on prices. Would I be right in saying that HSDPA plans are cheaper now because there is a price war of sorts going on? By that I mean, there is significant demand so there is significant competition.

THAT would be cool

I really don't think that this sort of thing will completely replace things like HSDPA, but if its free (or near-free) to use and its widely available..that can't be a bad thing.

Z

Once again Brains, thanks for your insight. I knew you'd post soon enough..

The shipping is very expensive from the US, I was going to investigate alternatives (PriceUSA etc). If we get enough enthusiastic people I'm sure we can arrange something...

Z

If someone was going to order a few units, then I'd be up for 1 atleast. As I'd sooner wait to purchase one when I can do it with others and cut down on the postage cost for just 1 unit.

I'd still like to have a tinker with one.

This sounds very similar to a few different systems springing up... the one I know a little about is FON. However I know from experience that the ISP's in Europe, certainly the ones in the UK, do not allow this service.

Not sure about wifi broadband 18-24 months ago, but in general, the Net is 5% more expensive now than it was 2 years ago, according to the surveys I ran here in 2006/08.

Me either - that's really what its all about. Having high demand has driven the prices down, it's clear that 'people' want that kind of access.

Having a free community network means more pressure, can only be a good thing (for us)...
Also the added benefit of having access in places you need/want it.

Above all that - the kit is cool

Z

A little update...

Free the Net in San Francisco cracked 77000 users today...!
Imagine what just 7 users could do to your street? or 70 to your suburb...

Z

To be clear, what he actually said was that "... It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking". But this is because there are three times as many people using cellular technology as there are smoking. A person is not better off smoking than using a mobile phone.

It's a damning report to be sure but not nearly as bad as the anti wi-fi crowd (and I'm not referring to Brains specifically) have been making it sound.

Well...I'm ready to order, even with the inherent health risks of wifi...

I put my hand up to co-ordinate a bulk buy, for those that are interested...please PM me.

Last time I checked the postage to Australia from Meraki was about $60USD. Then I would need to post to you or arrange pick up (or I'll drop it too you depending where you are).

My preference for payment is direct deposit, but happy to take that up with you individually.

I'd like to get an idea of interest to see if its worth while...
Link to Meraki store--->here.

Let's see how we go by the end of Friday...

Thanks,
Z