Albany Friends of Opal's Park

I have been talking with David Skinner and a few other people about setting up a wireless network within our community. The goals are as follows:

A) Provide cheap internet to as many households as possible
B) Provide a central storage system for file sharing

Below is my attempt to summarize our current situation.

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1) A fast internet connection

I now have an internet connection that is rated 10,000/1,000 kbps. This is the fastest I could get. I believe I can get a second line installed if need be.

2) Wireless access to internet access point

I am currently using an Apple Base Station Extreme to broadcast McKnight’s Free Wireless. Dan has extended the coverage using a Wireless Distribution System. His network name is Baer’s Lair.

I suggest we try out other, non-proprietary routers. I would prefer to use the Apple routers to extend coverage but not as the main connection. Happy to purchase the RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N WNDR3300 but would like some feedback from anyone interested first.

3) Wireless connection in each home

Each household that would like to connect to our system will need a wireless router that can grab the signal from the internet access point. This is a bit more complicated than simply connecting as each home should extend the network range. I believe David is working on this.

4) A central network storage system

Part of what makes this whole idea so attractive is that we can centrally store our media for distribution. This means instant access to my over 300 movies and 30,000 songs. I currently store them on two 750 GB drives hooked up as a 1.4 Terabyte JBOD system. I still have 300GB of free space. I would prefer to move to a more robust NAS system like a QNAP one.

QNAP TS-219P

QNAP TS-209 Pro II

5) Traffic tuning software

We need to have some way to limit access speeds by connection. I could see a system where we have an open (guest) access point that allows anyone with a wireless device to connect with limited speed, say 200/20 kbps shared between all guests. Households that support our network should have variable speeds based on support. Not sure what these speeds should cost but my bill is $70/month. So maybe:

Tier 1:     500/50 kbps        $10
Tier 2:     1000/100 kbps     $15
Tier 3:     2000/200 kbps     $20

Bonus points for software that can maximize the connection. If only one person is on, they should get the entire pipe.

6) Aggregate internet connections (future project?)

It would be sweet indeed if we could figure out how to aggregate internet connections so we could then distribute the load across multiple $70 access points.

At 12:36 PM -0700 7/5/09, Daniel Baer wrote:

As always following a conversation like yesterday’s around the picnic table, I had many thoughts, reactions, and questions that didn’t make it “to the table.” Art, Bryan, and I commute just about everyday of the school year, and we had a lingering conversation after the schoolyear was finished, so we kept it going by email. Email seemed like a good way to hold a discussion/debate because it allows a person adequate time to formulate questions and arguments, plus everyone can be heard. The problem with table discussions is that whoever is speaking is generally determined by who bubbles up with an idea quickest and pushes it out there the hardest. Maybe our discussion was just a fleeting one and is now lost, but it would be fun to revisit it or another one, with Margaret in on it too.