Dave in Dallas

While browsing around I have found two other freenet projects here in Dallas.

http://www.deepwireless.com/
http://www.dfwfreenet.org/

Interesting that the dfwfreenet folks are using the meraki equipment. I have just ordered mine to do some testing with.

Looks like Nokia and Sprint will be rolling out WiMAX early next year.

 http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2007/03/12/daily26.html?from_rss=1

I wonder how much that service is going to be? I already pay Sprint $40 bucks a month for data access through my cell phone. It would be great to switch to a faster network that works all over town.

This is one of the better compiled lists of free wi-fi I have seen. Make sure you look at the suburbs like Plano and Richardson in addition to Dallas.

http://www.wififreespot.com/tex.html 

So someone finally got it right. Here is a service that sells wireless mesh nodes for $50 or $100 for an outdoor version. Talk about an easy way to get a network up and off the ground. All you do is plug it in and hook it to yourinternet connection. You are now on the mesh. Or if you don't have an internet connection (or don't want to share) then you just give it power and it hooks up to one of the other nodes to get to the net. Simple and cheap, just what the world has been waiting for.

http://meraki.net/

My idea to get a good network going is to do something like bittorrent. Go setup some key nodes and hook them up with internet access, then just have folks extent those key "seeds" to start building out the network. I will definitely have to get a few of these and see how well they actually work.

The DFW Wireless Users Group is back. The wireless landscape has changed in the last few years and there are some very exciting things going on. Tony and I have been talking about getting the group back together for several months so here we go. It will start with this site and as we pick up steam we will start doing the meetings again. If you would like to be a part of the group start by signing up for a blog and start posting. We will also have an email list coming later in the week. As always if you have any questions or comments leave them as a comment to a post of send me an email at dave dot livingston at mac dot com.