Free the Wireless Net!

Five years ago, do-it-yourself activist James Stevens rigged up a wireless network that let his London neighbors share the high bandwidth Internet connection he'd installed.

These days, Stevens has far more ambitious plans: He wants to wirelessly network all of London by using relatively cheap, off-the-shelf parts. Stevens' project is one of several regional, free-wireless initiatives trying to combat the high cost of Internet access.

With the help of dozens of volunteers, Stevens is hoping to create a city-wide wireless network, built and maintained by the users themselves.

Unlike the commercial wireless networks, Stevens' Consume the Net network will offer free access to anyone with a computer and a US$100 wireless networking card.

"Broadband is prohibitively expensive," Stevens said. "A reasonable level of connectivity is absent. Technology gives us the opportunity to do it ourselves."

The network will use wireless cards based on the 802.11 ethernet standard and manufactured by vendors such as Lucent and Apple. Networked computers will communicate over the unlicensed 2.4 GHz range of the spectrum, the same frequency used by cordless phones and Bluetooth devices.

Data between computers can be transmitted at a rate of up to 8 Mbps. Access to the Internet will be limited by the speed of the primary broadband, cable modem, or DSL connection, which is often significantly slower.

Computers will have to be within 45 meters (148 feet) of the closest broadband connection, but the group is also experimenting with booster antennas to extend coverage to between 1 and 4 kilometers.

Stevens hopes that enough volunteers with broadband connections will invest about $1,000 to hook up their Net feeds to wireless base stations and booster antennas so that the project can stretch across the entire city.

So far, the group has attracted about a dozen committed members, and more than 180 people have subscribed to the group's mailing list.

Stevens said the first three nodes of the network will be up and running sometime this week. The nodes will cover about a square mile of East London, which, while one of the poorest parts of the city, is becoming a hotbed for new-media business.

Stevens, a firm believer in cooperative action, said Consume isn't just about sharing broadband costs, but is also an attempt to bring Net access to those who can't afford it.

"We'll put up this data cloud and anyone in the vicinity can tune in," he said.

Stevens has no plans to commercialize the project. "There will be plenty of spin-off opportunities later on. This is the new way of the Net -- user constructed networks," he said. "We're demonstrating the potential without outside commercial pressure."

Stevens has been active in cooperative projects for years. He also founded Backspace, an arts community that provided free Net access to the homeless and others from a converted warehouse in South London.

"It's a great idea," said Steve Tyler, a director of Mase Integration and Communications, which is networking hundreds of buildings for Newham Borough Council, one of London's local authorities, using essentially the same equipment.

Tyler cautioned, however, that because the network operates in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz range, there could be interference from other devices that use the same frequency.

"It's not a problem yet," he said. "But it will probably become a problem in a year or two. If someone else puts up their own antenna and it interferes, there's nothing anyone can do about it."

Steven's group also has to grapple with a number of other obstacles. The nodes of the network require specific software to connect; the network is purely line-of-sight and won't penetrate trees and houses; and there could be interference problems with signals bouncing off buildings.

On the plus side, the group has access to a sophisticated network-mapping tool called Web Stalker, which was commissioned for the troubled Millennium Dome project. Web Stalker will generate a 3-D map of the network to help users find the nearest access point.