Day 1 at the Wireless World expo was quite successful. Lots of positive feedback (nearly non negative), and great industry contacts. Read Nat’s write-up:
“Really good day, got lots of people interested in the project and got a chance to hone our project spiel and a better idea of which points to emphasise or explain in more detail or in different ways.“
Big thanks to Nat for driving up to Sydney from Canberra in the morning (4 hours!), and back again in the evening! And big thanks also to Alison to show up and help out (on her free day, and with beautiful weather outside). Sometimes the two of us just wasn’t enough to handle all people at the booth.
Come say hi at booth 65 of the Wireless World 2008 expo in Darling Harbour this week Wednesday and Thursday. The expo is free to attend, though you do need to register at entry. Heckle us with your questions, get touchy-feely with a Meraki up-close (oooh), or just say hi!
“Now into its fifth year and still experiencing unprecedented growth, Wireless World has become the region’s biggest dedicated end-user, solutions-focused event.
The event brings together mobile workers and wireless enterprises and provides them with an effective way to research the industry and then choose the best fit technologies, solutions and suppliers for their organisations.
In short, Wireless World is all about the integration and convergence of wireless, mobile, RF and IP solutions and how this can be applied to improve the way we all communicate and do business.”
I know most of us need to work during the week, so meet us next weekend Saturday and Sunday at BarCamp Sydney v3! Free again!
NO SPECTATORS, ONLY PARTICIPANTS
BarCamp Sydney April 5 & 6, a whole weekend!
When you come, be prepared to share with BarCampers.
When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.
BarCamp is an ad-hoc unconference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.
It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.
Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to participate.
What’s Next?
Sign up on the wiki, check out the blog, tell all your friends, prepare your presentation, ask your company if they’re interested in sponsoring…
Go!: http://barcamp.org/BarCampSydney
Saturday, Mar 29th, 2008
Categories: Media
You can now access Gmail, Google Maps and other Google services for free whenever you’re around a Fonera (a FON access point). Usually access to a Fonera is only free when you offer a Fonera at home yourself. You get a 15 minute slot for free, but afterwards you’ll need to pay up:
“Another great way of promoting FON and our shareholders is to allow all of our users to have free access to Google products, like Google Maps, news, search, and now Gmail. We’ve learned that when people get to try FON they are more likely to buy a FON pass or become a Fonero by purchasing a Fonera and sharing at home so they can roam for free.”
I wonder if this is officially endorsed by Google, or if FON is just riding on the back of Google’s success. Google wouldn’t mind of course, as they get more eyes on their ads.
Read the newsletter at FON.
According to their newsletter, there are 760.000 Foneros, worldwide. Unfortunately, they don’t offer their products for sale in Australia (yet). I wonder why that is.
Gets you thinking (me at least) on how different FON and Meraki are, and what Google expects out of their investment in Meraki.
Houston to get 10 ‘bubbles’ of free WiFi | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
On Monday, Mayor Bill White announced the city will use about $3.5 million [...] to build 10 free wireless network “bubbles” in low-income parts of Houston to give residents access they otherwise might do without.
The long-term possibility, White said, is that the bubbles could be connected and the areas between them added to the network, providing WiFi access across the city [...] In addition to installing Internet service, the city is working with
social service groups to provide computer access and training for
users. Each bubble will include about 15 public access points at
schools, city facilities and community organizations within the area.
Starbucks (US) has set up a social networking site where customers can sign up and share their Starbucks experience, fire off new idea’s and have people vote on them. Current number one is “All stores free wifi”. As some customers comment:
“I purposely go to a cafe in my home town that offers free wi-fi. I drive by 3 Starbucks on the way there and pay 50 cents more for the mocha for the free wi-fi.”
As an added bonus, the coffee may probably be better too… Read more over at Computer World.
If I think of all the small, independent coffee shops around town, you could form a really big mesh of free wifi in the CBD.
Tuesday, Mar 18th, 2008
Categories: Meraki
It’s been six months since the first Meraki group buy through the Facebook group.
I thought I quickly ping the community to see where we’re at.
Everyone, please feel free to respond, to one or all questions, even if you’ve only been sharing for a week. It may inspire other people to join.
A) How much bandwidth have you shared?
B) How many users are you sharing with (unique/total)?
C) Nr of Merakis open for public?
D) Standard or pro edition?
E) Are your sharing with other devices (Fon, Tomizone, Open-Mesh…)?
F) Where about (general location, suburb)?
G) Did you register on any mapping site (icanhazmeraki.net, nodedb.com,…)?
H) any horror stories?
Thanks!
Cross post from Facebook…
Tuesday, Mar 18th, 2008
Categories: Media
MIT Technology Review writes about Intel’s Rural Connectivity Platform (RCP):
“Intel has announced plans to sell a specialized Wi-Fi platform later this year that can send data from a city to outlying rural areas tens of miles away, connecting sparsely populated villages to the Internet.”
“The point-to-point technology will require two nodes, which could provide “full back-end infrastructure” for less than US$1,000. One node is usually installed at the edge of an urban area, wired to a local-area network cable Using a directional antenna, the device shoots data to a receiving antenna as far as 60 miles away. Once a node is installed in a village, the connection can be dispersed using standard cables and wireless routers.”
Read on at technologyreview.com.
Great news for rural areas in Australia and around the world.
Just received my Meraki Mini Pro, and a Meraki High-Gain Omni-Directional Antenna for the outdoors one. They also included some stickers and a brochure (because I asked for something promo material).
Quick write-up. Playing around with the Pro dashboard. Main different feature is the user registration (and the possibility of billing, but I won’t be using that). It is disappointing that you can’t limit bandwidth/usage on a per user basis, I thought the usage configuration would be more elaborate. You can also disable the spashpage and the messaging toolbar, but I want to use both of them anyway. So, not sure if it’s worth the extra 100$, tripling the price of the Mini, or double the price of the Outdoors.
Now both the Outdoors and the Mini Pro are gateways. When I unplug the Mini Pro from my router, it automatically connects to the Outdoors, which is pretty cool (the meshing feature). But because that is a Standard version, the Mini becomes a Standard too (as expected).
I can now also see the other neigbor network through the dashboard, so when two Meraki networks are within each others reach, they can see each other, and connect to each other when one’s connection drops (as tested by unplugging). When connected to one, I can get the signal strength of the other through my.meraki.com, in dB. The Outdoors (euh, outdoors) with high-gain antenna gives me 58dB, the Mini indoors gives me 50dB.
Here is an interesting rundown on the history of Meraki and perceived negative changes that have been made to the original offering. Changes like forced advertising on the original price point while tripling the price to use the ‘Pro’ service allowing you to charge for access, most recently the right to flash other firmware onto Meraki hardware has been removed.
These changes have lead to splinter groups that are working hard (and successfully) to duplicate Meraki’s offering in an entirely open source solution. See http://www.open-mesh.com/ for one such group.
Meraki makes another business blunder
After just a few months, Meraki responded by updating their End User License Agreement [...] (which) allows the Meraki to prevent any changes to the Meraki hardware or firmware (software) on any new hardware purchases.[...] My ultimate goal is a completely open source solution for creating a Wireless Open Mesh Network by April 1st. Let’s work together to make that goal achievable everywhere!
Tuesday, Mar 11th, 2008
Categories: Media
Ericsson predicts:
“The rapid growth of mobile broadband is set to make Wi-Fi hotspots irrelevant. Hotspots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era,” claimed Ericsson’s chief marketing officer Johan Bergendahl, speaking to delegates at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference in Stockholm.
Bold prediction. But it is a marketing executive after all. But I’m not dissing him at all. For my mobile needs, and while we’re building out the Australian wide free wireless network, I have a Vodafone 3G modem which is A$39 for 5Gb. Imaging this becoming 10-20Gb in a considerable time. I’d need a portable, battery-powered router though, which connects my iPod, and my PSP, and my eeePC, and… to my mobile broadband modem. We can look forward to a free mobile wireless (3G-4G) network, where I take my broadband connection with me around town. I would become a walking node in a city-wide mesh network. My home neighbors wouldn’t be too happy (when I’m away, they can’t connect to my internet connection), but I’d make lots of friends around town. Or rather stalkers…
On a side note, Ericsson also won a Vodafone contract to deliver HSPA hardware and software for an upgrade of its 3G network in Australia, fully implemented by the end of the year.