The City of Boulder, the Downtown Business Improvement District and Lumin Innovative Products is launching a free, solar-powered hotspot service this weekend.
The district, which is funded through a property tax, paid local start-up Lumins $10,000 for the hardware to create the solar-powered wireless system.
For that, the district got three LightWave units - wireless access points that are powered by solar battery packs. The units provide WiFi to the four-block pedestrian portion of Pearl Street, between 11th and 15th streets.
Lumin’s four co-founders started the company in Boulder about 18 months ago, said partner Sally Lyon, to work on commercializing technology co-founder Ben Adams originally dreamed up while in the military. “One of the projects he was working on was trying to build a network in the middle of the desert, where there was no power source,” Lyon said.That’s ultimately where the company expects its technology to end up, she said, in deserts and other places without convenient access to power sources. “We love that Boulder could make the choice to implement it, but it’s not exactly our target market,” Lyon said. “It was designed for places where power is not really an option.”
The district liked the technology for a couple of reasons, Cote said, not the least of which was the use of renewable energy. “Boulder is not only progressive in its business and technology, it’s also progressive in terms of its social values,” he said.
The service on Pearl Street is also free - users need only be within service range and have a PDA or laptop with wireless capabilities to access the Web, Cote said.
The LightWave AP-1000 from Lumin is a solar-powered wireless network access point, ruggedized and waterproofed for outdoor deployment.
It’s based on Proxim’s ORiNOCO wireless AP 2000, and uses their network management tools, security features, and VoIP capabilities. Proxim’s Proxim’s AP 4000 features 802.11a/b/g, automatic splash pages and multiple security settings per AP with use of VLANs, and up to 16 VLANs per radio.
It only takes five hours of direct sun or the cumulative equivalent amount of light over a longer period of time to charge the battery completely. A fully-charged battery can power one LightWave for 72 hours.
SoCalFreeNet assembled a solar powered access point. They used two 6V batteries with a Soekris 4511 SBC and two radio cards. A 8.5dBi omni (with 9 degree downtilt) supplies local 802.11b access while a 802.11a radio supplies backhaul.
Cellular EV-DO might supply backhaul (over Verizon’s dead body). The $700 Junxion box and Entree Box do just that. They integrate a WiFi access point with a cellular backbone.
A SlashDot reader built a mobile access point for a few hundred bucks based on a Soekris net2421 ($180) and Verizon’s 1xRTT/EVDO service. Wherever his car goes, the Internet link goes. Here’s how he built it.
But fees for data transmission can be a show stopper. Besides, the upstream data speed of EV-DO may kill you — it’s only about 56kbps. No good for wireless netcams.
Tyler Booth of Stephouse Internet has a better idea. He built the Stephouse WiFi car.
He uses WiFi for the backbone. The backhaul signal is received through a WET-11 wireless bridge mounted in the trunk of the car. Standard Ethernet cable links to an Apple Airport Extreme base station. Whenever Tyler is near a PersonalTelco hotspot he can “go live”. And does.
A battery operated Linksys WRT-54G ($60) flashed with firmware (for automatic redirected spashpages) may also work. Rumor has it the Linksys SRX MIMO router can also be hacked.
LinksysInfo.org has a ton of free software you can add to Linksys boxes to provide stand-alone access points with automatic page re-direct.
Portless EWRT and Sveasoft Firmware can be embedded in a Linksys WRT-54G. The software costs about zip and the hardware isn’t much more. The Linksys SRX MIMO box has recently added external SMA connectors so you could screw in your own antenna(s). That should get you down the block.
How much could a 20-40 watt solar cell, motorcycle battery/gell cell, charge controller and weather-proof component box cost? Maybe $300-$600 dollars? That’s cheap promotional value-added.
The Boulder Community Network (BCN) is Boulder Colorado’s non-profit sector ambassador to the world of information technology and the Internet. Here are some other solar resources.
.gif)
