Building Wireless Community Networks, Second Edition

The Community Takes Notice

Luckily, we didn’t have to wait very long for the community to notice us. Just after I returned from Seattle, a local newspaper (The Press Democrat, http://www.pressdemo.com/business/columns/02sims.html) ran a feature on some of my wireless shenanigans. I had no idea at the time how valuable this kind of exposure could be to the community LAN idea. Within a week, I had received a few dozen emails and several phone calls from locals who were interested in wireless networking. Some offered expertise and equipment, while others were simply curious about our plans and what could be accomplished with 802.11b.

After the article ran, our mailing list grew to about 25 people. We decided to hold a general meeting to get organized and figure out what we wanted to do with this stuff. I was pleasantly surprised when 16 interested people showed up at that first meeting. Many were looking for free high-speed access, while others were simply curious. A few were Northpoint victims who had been forcibly unplugged from their DSL when that company went under, and they were looking for any alternative (apparently, they were no longer considered part of the “prime” market, and would likely not see high-speed access again for quite a while).

As the discussion went well into the third hour, it was obvious from that first meeting that this was going to turn into a regular event. These people were keenly interested in contributing to a free local network, and had a tremendous amount ...