[Rack] Fwd: Mounting antennas on Noisebridge

Sat Jan 23 01:32:28 UTC 2016

Hey!

Yeah Thursday the 28th at 18:00 would work just fine for me. I'll plan on
seeing you then/there :)

Max

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 3:47 PM, Rubin Abdi <rubin at starset.net> wrote:

> Sent that a little too soon. I have a prior engagement on that Thursday
> that requires me to leave the space by 19:30. If you can meet up between
> 18:00 and 19:00, that'll work. :)
>
> On 22 January 2016 at 15:46, Rubin Abdi <rubin at starset.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi Max. Maybe a meet up at Noisebridge would be in order to figure out
>> what is and isn't possible. Some of us have been meeting up at Noisebridge
>> every other Thursday night to review our todo list of crap to fix in the
>> space, that might be the best time. The next one we're meeting up on is the
>> 28th of this month. We can checkout the current setup on the roof and
>> review some of the things we want to eventually do/clean up, plus stuff
>> from your previous email.
>>
>> On 22 January 2016 at 11:28, max b <maxb.personal at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Re-sending because I wasn't subscribed to the list before I sent.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hey,
>>>
>>> Thanks for reaching out! I can totally understand the caveats you're
>>> mentioning. I think I can address some of these ideas and then go from
>>> there.
>>>
>>> Our side of the network infrastructure is currently very bare bones and
>>>> literally held together by duct tape. It needs a lot of attention.
>>>
>>> We are lacking in time to work on any networking projects (as long as
>>>> it's up for us it's good) as other more important projects keep on coming
>>>> up (such as getting our access control system fixed, or fund raising).
>>>
>>>
>>> The sudomesh/peoplesopen.net folks can do all the network
>>> install/admin/maintenance for the public network aspect. All we would need
>>> is an ethernet port where we'd get uplink bandwidth. Our firmware provides
>>> for strict separation of network subnets, so that all public traffic goes
>>> straight out to our internet exit server to the internet. We can also have
>>> remote access depending on what everyone agrees on, so we'd be able to
>>> monitor and do some remote debugging in case of issues.
>>>
>>> We're still waiting on Monkeybrains to complete some work on the roof
>>>> they've agreed to do.
>>>> Our line of sight to anything isn't that great, particularly the East
>>>> Bay.
>>>> We want to be respectful of Monkeybrain's ability to run their
>>>> business, so it's hard to come up with a good plan to offer the local
>>>> community free wifi while still not hosing our relationship with them.
>>>
>>>
>>> So the roof thing is obviously tricky, and I think this would depend on
>>> what exactly the work is and what the current situation on the roof is. As
>>> for line of sight issues and not wanting to compete with Monkeybrains, one
>>> possible option would be to mount a few 2.4ghz antennas pointing towards
>>> the street which broadcast a public SSID and which simply provide free wifi
>>> to the street below noisebridge. It's unlikely that this would compete with
>>> Monkeybrains because it's just a different service than they provide. It
>>> also wouldn't interfere with any of the spectrum that Monkeybrains uses
>>> because they are on the 5ghz bands. It's also a fairly simple process. We
>>> have a firmware and config setup that's built for this sort of use-case. We
>>> did a similar install last weekend at some downtown Oakland offices:
>>> https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Blog#Downtown_Oakland_Access_Point
>>>
>>> You can pick the amount of bandwidth to share, and we could do a nice
>>> and tidy install of a few antennas and a router.
>>>
>>> The nice thing about the firmware we've been developing is that it
>>> functions both as a public AP and a mesh router with babel and 802.11
>>> ad-hoc mode. So we could do the public wifi install and then see how things
>>> go. If at some point folks felt comfortable with the monkey brains
>>> situation and there was line of sight somewhere and they wanted to build a
>>> long(ish) link, the basic infrastructure is the same and it would be a
>>> fairly simple matter of swapping in an antenna and putting one on the
>>> remote location.
>>>
>>> Let me know if I can provide some more detail about the network. I know
>>> that the topology and design, etc. can be pretty confusing (it's taken us
>>> this long just to come up with it), so I'd be happy to find ways to make
>>> sure that everyone is on the same page.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>> Max
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:32 AM, Rubin Abdi <rubin at starset.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi all.
>>>>
>>>> We've been wanting to do a project like this for a while however we've
>>>> had a couple constraints...
>>>>
>>>> - We're still waiting on Monkeybrains to complete some work on the roof
>>>> they've agreed to do.
>>>> - Our side of the network infrastructure is currently very bare bones
>>>> and literally held together by duct tape. It needs a lot of attention.
>>>> - We are lacking in time to work on any networking projects (as long as
>>>> it's up for us it's good) as other more important projects keep on coming
>>>> up (such as getting our access control system fixed, or fund raising).
>>>> - Our line of sight to anything isn't that great, particularly the East
>>>> Bay.
>>>> - We want to be respectful of Monkeybrain's ability to run their
>>>> business, so it's hard to come up with a good plan to offer the local
>>>> community free wifi while still not hosing our relationship with them.
>>>>
>>>> But I'm totally open to hear what your ideas are. :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 21 January 2016 at 22:11, Brandon <brandonesbox at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Re-sending from the email I subscribed to the list with, since I think
>>>>> the other didn't make it through:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hey all,
>>>>>
>>>>> Max, this is the networking list of Noisebridge.
>>>>> Networking list of Noisebridge, this is Max of the People's Open
>>>>> Network (the Oakland Mesh project run out of Sudo Room).
>>>>> I'm Brandon, I'm running a hackathon called Hack the Left out of
>>>>> Noisebridge Feb 5-7.
>>>>>
>>>>> Max suggested as a possible hackathon project mounting antennas on top
>>>>> of Noisebridge that would share our uplink with the surrounding community.
>>>>> So I wanted to open discussion between y'all about this.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thoughts? Opinions? Known constraints? Max, do you wanna explain the
>>>>> project in somewhat greater detail?
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Brandon
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Rack mailing list
>>>>> Rack at lists.noisebridge.net
>>>>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/rack
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Rubin
>>>> rubin at starset.net
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Rack mailing list
>>> Rack at lists.noisebridge.net
>>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/rack
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Rubin
>> rubin at starset.net
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Rubin
> rubin at starset.net
>
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