Brewster Kahle’s Internet Achive, has a simple goal; “Universal Access to All Human Knowledge.” It sounds screwy, but Kahle’s nonprofit organization is providing just that.
The Library of Congress — and governments around the world — have been put on notice. Their efforts now appear pathetic and largely inconsequential.
Kahle has archived the entire Internet and he is putting it on-line for free. Kahle’s on-line library dwafts the LOC. And it gets bigger and better everyday.
“In the Wayback Machine, currently there are 10 billion Web pages, collected over five years. That amounts to 100 terabytes, which is 100 million megabytes. So if a book is a megabyte, which is about what it is, and the Library of Congress has 20 million books, that’s 20 terabytes. This is 100 terabytes. At that size, this is the largest database ever built. It’s larger than Walmart’s, American Express’, the IRS. It’s the largest database ever built.”
Kahle is proof that one individual can make a difference. His Wayback Machine defines “Universal Access to All Human Knowledge”.
O’Reilly profiles Brewster Kahle and his Internet Achive while SF Gate profiles SFLan, his pioneering Community LAN in San Francisco.
SFLan, an Internet Achive project, is the second half of Kahle’s vision — “Universal Broadband Access”.
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The Bay Area Research Wireless Network (BARWN), spearheaded by Brewster Kahle, Matt Peterson and Tim Pozar, is extending “free” broadband to the entire Bay Area.
Their white paper overview, network map, mail archive and presentation explain the basics of their “free” community backbone. The idea is that local hot spots could use the backbone instead of DSL. A profile on Tim Pozar and BARWN is in Sacramento weekly.
So far, 25 of the gray boxes are up and running across San Francisco, and more are on the way. At about $1,000 apiece, they’re not exactly cheap. But compared to earlier generations of long-distance wireless-networking hardware, which sometimes cost tens of thousands of dollars per site, Pozar’s design is a steal — particularly for underdeveloped areas where there may be no other solution.
“Basically, what we want is the expectation that if you open your laptop or personal digital assistant (PDA) at any given place, you have access to the open Internet,” he says. And, for Kahle, a slow network isn’t going to cut it. He wants to move data at the speed of DVD video. “Search, click, see movies,” he emphasizes. “Now, we’re not quite there yet. But that’s the idea.”
It sounds like every broadband Internet service provider’s fantasy, but it’s maybe not as far-fetched as it seems. Over the last year or so, small, gray plastic boxes have begun appearing atop homes and businesses around San Francisco. Roof by roof, they’re bringing Kahle’s vision of ubiquitous wireless-network access closer to reality — no telephone companies or cable providers required.
Inside each gray box are off-the-shelf 200 mW Senao 802.11b network cards powered by a small, Soekris single-board computer. Each box incorporates two high-gain antennas. The first is omnidirectional, acting as a beacon of wireless connectivity to the immediate area. The second points straight at the nearest neighboring rooftop box, or perhaps to the locus of BARWN’s most ambitious project to date: a powerful antenna high atop San Bruno Mountain. In this way, each box is linked to a larger network, forming a completely wireless backbone extending across the City and to neighboring municipalities.
Their system is based on the Soekris Box, a $250, solid-state unit that runs Community network software off Compact Flash cards and a couple of 200mW 802.11b cards. Mountain Top Hardware costs include:
Soekris Net 4521 board - $230.00 1 $230.00 200mW 802.11b cards - $90.00 2 $180.00 Pigtails for cards - $20.00 2 $40.00 CompactFlash - $40.00 1 $40.00 LMR-600* (per foot) - $1.17 272 $318.24 24dBi antennas - $80.00 2 $160.00 Generic AP - $200.00 1 $200.00 Omnidirectional antenna - $100.00 1 $100.00 Case and supply for net4521 board(s)- $100.00 1 $100.00 Misc cables, hardware, etc.*** - $200.00 1 $200.00 Total ~ $2,000.00 Deep Cycle Marine Battery** $250.00 1 $250.00 Charger** $200.00 1 $200.00
If you’re close enough to a rooftop box (say, within a thousand feet), a laptop or PDA may be all you need to join the SFLan network. More likely, however, you’ll need an external antenna
“You’re still going to need something that repeats the signal inside your house,” explains Kahle. “You’d put one of these [boxes] up on your roof as a replacement for DSL or cable, and then you’d bring a wire down into your house to either plug in to your own router or hub or to connect to your computer.” At the same time, the box would rebroadcast the signal to your local neighborhood while paving the way for the next rooftop node to join the network, forming a daisy chain.
So far, 25 of the gray boxes are up and running across San Francisco, and more are on the way. At about $1,000 apiece, they’re not exactly cheap. But compared to earlier generations of long-distance wireless-networking hardware, which sometimes cost tens of thousands of dollars per site, Pozar’s design is a steal — particularly for underdeveloped areas where there may be no other solution.
Pozar is in talks with co-location provider eXchange@200 Paul to put one of BARWN’s gray boxes on the roof of its facility, bringing broadband networking to the Hunters Point area for the first time, wirelessly. And what works for Hunters Point could be even more beneficial in developing countries.
In 2001 and 2002, Clif Cox used wireless technology to bring telephone and data connectivity to the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Today, Cox — the primary architect of SFLan — operates a small business out of his workshop in Eugene, Ore., building gray boxes based on Peterson and Pozar’s design. Besides supplying both SFLan and BARWN, he’s shipped similar hardware to clients in locales as far-flung as the Galapagos Islands.
“In Bhutan, the wireless network was primarily to provide telephone service,” explains Cox. “If you build a digital network, then it’s like falling off a log to send audio data over it.” As an added bonus, such a network allows for Internet access at no incremental cost, when the time comes.
As Cox explains it, “The community-network folks are trying to build the commons and make something that they feel should be kind of like a public library — like, free for everyone, just there, like infrastructure. Kind of like drinking fountains on the side of the street. You don’t pay for that water. It should be like that. It’s access to information, it’s access to quality of life. It’s just participating in society. That’s what wireless technology is starting to be associated with.”
DailyWireless Co-Founder Don Park is creating a similar long-distance community LAN in Portland in association with Personal Telco. Don Park’s Wide Area Node (left), sits 1000ft high, on top of Rocky Butte near downtown Portland, which has sweeping views to the east and west. A 1957 cold war film, direct from Brewster Kahle’s archive.org, (Part 1 and Part 2), shows the (now deactivated) Rocky Butte bomb shelter, directly beneath Don’s antenna. Mayor Terry Shrunk prepares for a nuclear attack on Portland, Oregon.
Don Park has a more upbeat vision for the future. It’s similar to the Bay Area Wireless User Group, Seattle Wireless and other Freenetworks.
Free broadband. Everywhere. All the time.
Municipal Clouds and Wireless Cities include Austin, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Boston, Bellevue & Kirkland, Calgary, Charleston, South Carolina, OneCleveland, LA suburbs, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Datona Beach, Hermosa Beach, Long Beach, Louisville, FreeBeeAtlanta, Wireless Athens and others including the State of Maine, the State of Georgia and the Southeastern United States.
Related Dailywireless articles include Brewster Kahle’s Odyssey, Brewster Kahle Addresses LOC, City-wide Clouds: A Roundup, City-run Telecom In Portland?, Portland, Most Unwired City, Wi-Fi Bus, Seattle-to-Portland Wi-Fi Proposal, Tri-Mode Last Mile and Free Community Backbones.
With 802.16a, inexpensive 70 Mbps backbones will become increasingly cheap. Directional antennas can form a ring connecting hilltops. Relays/media servers ($5K) can distribute 802.16a to hotspots in schools, community centers, coffee shops, homes and apartments. Local multimedia content delivered to IP-TV Settops and telephony (using VoIP over 802.16e) could generate revenue for free networks.
Kahle’s vision is spreading world-wide. The rest is history.
