The Advertiser Computers section - mid 2003
Air Networks Take Off
A quiet network revolution is gaining momentum though Adelaide’s suburbs. JOHN HARRIS discovers that this invisible society is more of an “overground” than an underground movement.
A lot of the interesting culture starts in the garage. From new rock bands to the first Apple computer, the venerable car shed has spawned some fascinating offspring during the past few decades.
The latest garage trend sweeping Australia is the community wireless network movement. Computer enthusiasts throughout the country are placing high-powered antennas on their wireless networks to boost reception to several kilometres in effect creating suburb-wide free community networks.
Large, albeit chaotic, wireless community networks operate in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, allowing members to exchange e-mail, files and even telephone calls with each other while bypassing the dial-up or broadband charges of standard Internet access providers.
In Adelaide, 100 hardcore enthusiasts, spread from Gawler to Goolwa, have taken the plunge to plug themselves into their own web or “mesh” – their nickname for the community wireless network.
Effectively, they are hotwiring their wireless networks to expand reach in order to create “hotspot suburbs”, where several networks overlap to weave the strand of the “mesh”.
These suburbs include Norwood, Gawler, West Beach and Port Adelaide (the two latter suburbs will interconnect in the next few weeks).
Also, a group of former school friends have banded together to form an organisation called the Air-Stream Association, which aims to help avoid the chaotic approach that has plagued community networks in other cities.
With its website located at www.air-stream.org , Air-Stream aims to build a local community of users who can share files and services, play games, and communicate with each other at broadband speeds via the free network.
A $50 a year membership charge covers the administrative costs of the network, although members need to pay for hardware costs so they can connect to the “mesh”.
Air-Stream treasurer James Day, one of the founders of the organisation, says interest in wireless activity has boomed during the past two years.
Mr Day says the group is “working hard to get others around the city linked to the mesh”.
“Air-Streams goal is to link smaller community networks.”
Although Air-Stream only has about 20 members, more than 100 enthusiasts thought the city co-operate to interconnect their wireless networks.
Also, if registrations of interest are anything to go by, this number could be ready for a large increase. Air-Stream alone has 500 people who have expressed an interest in taking part in the concept.
For members, Air-Stream provides 24-hour, seven-day-a-week access to its network.
Although the facility does not include Internet access, it provides members with file transfer, networked computer games, chat forums, web pages and community interest content with no time limits.
An interesting side benefit is that people using community wireless networks can make phone calls to each other – using Voice Over Internet Protocol (IP) software – without paying standard call rates.
Mr Day says the community wireless network can transfer both voice and date information.
“You can place a phone call over the mesh using Voice Over IP,” he says. “With the network, all you need is an old PC with a 16-bit sound card to work as a voice gateway. We normally voice chat quite regularly.”
A major concern for non-technical people interested in community wireless networks is the issue of security – the risk that allowing your wireless network to transfer data may expose files on your computer to uninvited access.
Mr Day says Air-Stream provides technical notes to advise people about how to protect data on their computers.
“A bigger concern is about encryption of data as it is transferred between networks,” ha says. “On our backbone, or main links, we use WEP (Wired Equivalent Protocol) on all out hardware.”
On top of WEP, various security options are available for people wanting to protect information as it is transferred.
