shaddi
Joined 17 years ago
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273
Member since
Mar 2
Recent submissions
Comment · 12 years ago
We don't support roaming yet, so phones from other carriers won't work on our networks. The networks are fully independent, with their own phone numbers and connectivity to the global phone network though.
Definitely get in touch if you'd like to talk more! Many of our customers live in places that sound like where you live.
Comment · 12 years ago
Basically this. Spectrum regulations (both de facto and de jure) vary dramatically between jurisdictions. It's definitely a challenge, but not as big of a deal as one might expect, particularly for rural networks.
Comment · 12 years ago
Our current model retails for $6,000. It's an exciting time to be working in this space -- five years ago, setting up a single tower in a rural location could cost upwards of $100,000.
Comment · 12 years ago
Cofounder here. All service is prepaid, and we have a credit transfer system built-in. The network operator can load up credits onto someone's account directly through our management interface, and that user can resell it to whoever they like. For example, a network operator could sell credits in bulk directly to shop owners, who could then resell to the community at large.
Comment · 13 years ago
It seems like there's been another surge of interest of late in mesh networks. Last time this happened, I wrote up a piece explaining why mesh networks are really a poor solution for circumventing censorship: http://sha.ddih.org/2011/11/26/why-wireless-mesh-networks-wo.... Since then, some of my colleagues and I at Berkeley wrote a more academic version of this blog post. The talk is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doMYDmtzsTQ and you can grab the paper too if you're interested: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~shaddi/papers/foci13.pdf. The short version is mesh networks have fundamental scaling limitations that make them a poor choice for building alternative infrastructures like the ones discussed in this article; for example, a result from 2000 showed that capacity available to each node in a mesh network actually decreases as the mesh grows.
The other thing I'd note is that this article is referring to "mesh networks", when it really means "community networks": networks run by a community, regardless of whether the network is a mesh or not. I don't know about the Athens network in particular, but I know that the Freifunk and Guifi networks are rather hierarchically structured (i.e., are not true mesh networks). This is necessary for building a wireless network with reasonable performance due to the aforementioned fundamental scaling limitations of mesh networks.
I love the enthusiasm of everyone working on mesh networks, but I think it's valuable to keep a critical perspective and not get carried away with that enthusiasm, if for no other reason than to stay honest about the technical challenges involved.
Comment · 13 years ago
I have this sitting on my desk at the moment (just OpenBTS + rPi + a SDR). Nothing too crazy about it.
I like this because they are using the rPi itself as a radio -- that's a pretty neat hack.
Comment · 14 years ago
To be fair, they're not explicitly charging twice as much for consistent reads. You get consistent reads until you exceed your provisioned read amount, which unfortunately is measured in these odd units of "read capacity"). It's not clear (to me, anyway) if the 2x number represents something accurate about resource usage or if it's just a provisioning guideline.
That said, what provisioned capacity means in DynamoDB is pretty opaque. Great point about the utility of latency information for developers.
Comment · 15 years ago
I'm less worried about this actually -- I think the biggest problem is your own nodes interfering with themselves ("internal interference") rather than with an attacker. Agreed this is an issue though, and using omnidirectional antennas exacerbates it. Using directional antennas actually helps, for the same reason it's hard to see a laser beam from the side.
Comment · 15 years ago
Even an electronically steerable antenna would help, but then you start running up the cost of equipment. Interference is still an issue since one must always be listening from all directions for possible transmissions. Spectrum and time scheduling remain a (NP-)hard problem as well. You're up against fundamental laws of physics and computer science: pick your poison. :)
Comment · 15 years ago
I generally agree, but I tried to shed some light on the fundamental physics/math behind why building such a network is impractical. In any case, it might one day be possible, but I think a better use of resources (especially for non- and semi-technical people) is to contribute to the social movement around Internet free speech and to build real-world political networks.
Comment · 15 years ago
Yeah, that's the tricky part. It took a couple revisions in front of users to figure out the right way to do bootstrapping.
Comment · 15 years ago
We need to get a dozen or so simultaneous users for it to work nicely. Please be patient! I'm seeing several users calling in right now.
Edit: we've made some changes to greatly increase the likelihood of matching with someone!
CS grad student at UC Berkeley.
My site: www.shaddih.com
Let's talk: [email protected]