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Poster:	Andrew Morrow	Date:	October 22, 2007 01:59:57am
Forum:	sflan	Subject:	SFLan made obsolete by sf.meraki.com

It seems that http://sf.meraki.com/ has rendered SFLan obsolete.

I updated this wiki with some ad-hoc current info:

http://wiki.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/SFLAN

As of October 2007, in an ad-hoc test, only the following four nodes responded to ping, 3 near Mount Sutrao and the one at the EFF Office:

sflan11.sflan.org - root host at Mt. Olympus
sflan8.sflan.org - Parnassus Heights
sflan13.sflan.org - Cole Valley (all bad pings seem to respond from here)
sflan18.sflan.org - http://www.eff.org/

The main gateway seems to be sflangw.sflan.org and there is a router upstream of that called sfroute.sflan.org

I also note that the primary info server for SFLan, woody.archive.org , appears to be down.

There is an old version of the map here: http://web.archive.org/web/20070217134018/http://woody.archive.org/cgi-bin/nagios2/statusmap.cgi

The map shows about 30 nodes defined.

Also, I added a mention of SFLan to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Wireless

This post was modified by Andrew Morrow on 2007-10-22 09:59:57

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Poster:	Ralf Muehlen	Date:	October 22, 2007 08:14:14am
Forum:	sflan	Subject:	Re: SFLan made obsolete by sf.meraki.com

We wish Meraki all the best, and have repeatedly offered them bandwidth. Meraki is an advertising-supported way to extend DSL and cable modem lines and they are good for that purpose. Meraki makes DSL and cable cheaper, but in their current deployments does not obsolete them. When the phone and cable duopoly enforces their Acceptable Use Policies, Meraki is at their mercy.

The point of SFLan is to demonstrate that it is possible to build a third pipe independently of the phone and cable duopoly, with free software and commodity hardware, and without any strings attached. That means a neutral network, with no ads, no censorship, and no restrictions on privacy.

Our original network architecture was an over-the-air backbone. The ever increasing noise level in the ISM bands made that ever more difficult. Many long distance links (several miles) do not function anymore due to the phenomenal success of WiFi in general. It is now clear that a fiber and wireless hybrid is the best architecture for a city-wide network.

What SFLan, BARWN and other community networks have shown that it is possible to build large open networks with open technology on open standards.

Our competion is not Meraki or other commercial networks. We want to show a way out of the bandwidth tar pit that the phone and cable duopoly keep us in. For that, we can always use more volunteers and contributors.

Ralf

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Poster:	Andrew Morrow	Date:	October 22, 2007 02:38:27pm
Forum:	sflan	Subject:	Re: SFLan made obsolete by sf.meraki.com

I updated the verbiage at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Wireless

to read:

SFLan, a project of the Internet Archive, constructed an experimental cooperative wireless internet service provider (WISP) that grew to approximately 30 nodes, using an over-the-air backbone relying on line-of-site transmission. Noise level in the ISM bands due to proliferating and competing Wi-Fi signals made many of their long distance links (several miles) nonfuncitonal. The network contracted from 30 functioning nodes in February 2007 down to four by October. They are considering changing their architecture to a fiber and wireless hybrid.

Please feel free to "edit that page"

I have technical questions:

Has SFLan attempted to get a press release out in reaction to the cancellation of San Francisco Municipal Wireless to explain lessons learned and SFLan's role in any future networks?

By "fiber and wireless hybrid" do mean the creation of a new fiber ring or just replacing your line-of-sight connections with point-to-point fiber that the SFLan the community will somehow share in the cost of?

Is SFLan going to design and publish a new architecture document?

One comment: The "neutral network" you define as no ads, no censorship, and no restrictions on privacy might help to generate some enthusiasm, but I have to wonder how much, especially if you expect your volunteers to pay the monthly fiber bill. The EarthLink/Google project did not fail because of any these kinds of concerns. Put in marketing terms: how much of a marginal loss of network neutrality do your volunteers and donors perceive in these commercial solutions and how much are they willing to pay to keep that neutrality?

I am not trying a marketing type and I am not trying to badger you: I simply recognize that your network has collapsed and I am concerned that SFLan have a viable future.

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Poster:	cjp	Date:	October 29, 2007 09:12:01pm
Forum:	sflan	Subject:	Re: SFLan made obsolete by sf.meraki.com

Is there any point to maintaining this as a project? Little forum activity, and I've not been able to connect to any of the nodes 8, 52, 56, or 13 (and occasionally 11) (e.g. tonight I could see 8, 52, 56, & 13; connected to 8 (80% signal strength, ip=169.254.186.202 but no gateway associated). Links [Node Uptime], [SFLan Map], [clients] are all broken.

If there is no effort to maintain this, be green and take it all down.

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Poster:	GrampaSmitty	Date:	November 13, 2007 08:57:33pm
Forum:	sflan	Subject:	Re: SFLan made obsolete by sf.meraki.com

I have a granddaughter living in SF who needs a way to access the Internet. As a poor student, she doesn't have the money to purchase DSL or even have a land line phone, which for some reason, is ghastly expensive down there.

I have been trying to ascertain the presence of an SFLan Node near her place of residence, which is 1755 OFarrell. For some reason, I cannot access your maps anymore, and various forums suggest that SFLan is down for good, or nearly defunct, due to wireless interference. I sure hope not and that my grandkid can use SFLan for as long as she is in the city.

Please advise,
Keith Smith