I’ve always been interested in mesh networks, distributed computing and the like. The thought harnessing the power of many inexpensive and available devices collectively to match or exceed what would have taken huge resources to do with one or a few devices has always impressed me.
Dynamic Network Services encourages side projects that expand the minds of it’s employees, and even more so when it’s fun.
Last year we tossed around the idea of setting up a wireless network for the city of Manchester using small and inexpensive nodes scattered around the city. We have the technical know-how and we are in a unique position to lead a community based project like this, so we bought a handful of devices and gave it a try. It started off small; we installed a few nodes here and there down the street and within a few months that few became dozens.
The current page is pretty basic, but it has a contact form where people can enter their address. If someone is close enough to another mesh node; we can set them up with a node. If they aren’t close enough yet, we can let them know once they are.
We have recently received some press coverage on the project:
- Union Leader Article
- The same article at MSNBC (No pretty pictures, but it’s MSNBC
) - Hippo Press Article
As you can see from the articles; Doing WiFi in the city was attempted before but it was expensive , non-free and it just plain doesn’t work anymore.
In the past few days since the article; we have been contacted by enough potential participants to double the network. Last week, the mesh covered a half mile of the city. We have six dozen more nodes ready to deploy around the City and we are ready to get more to cover 3-4 times that. It’s pretty awesome to see a concept come to fruition like this, and even more so to see the power of community make such a thing possible.
