CUWiN's blog

In the past month, CUWiN has said goodbye to Anne Odom and welcomes Lori Patterson in taking over her responsibilities.

Anne, who was CUWiN's Technical Coordinator helped us to get through our initial setup at OJC and our first OSI milestone. Not long ago she accepted a position with another company in the Champaign-Urbana area. Congratulations, Anne! We wish you the best!

Filling Anne's Technical Coordinator position is Lori Patterson, one of the co-founders of OJC. Lori, who's been a part of many of OJC's projects in the past, comes on-board at the perfect time: right when we are gearing up for our second OSI milestone! Welcome, Lori!

This Saturday, July 17, CUWiN is hosting the first-ever node construction party. CUWiN will provide free Pizza and beverages for anyone who comes to help. Whether you can barely hold a screwdriver or are an expert electrical engineer we need your help.

If you're wondering what's entailed, check out our node construction guide.

CUWiN developers will be giving overviews of our equipment, teaching folks how to build your own nodes, answering questions, eating pizza, etc. Please RSVP (if you plan to come just drop me a quick e-mail) so we can ensure ample food for everyone. If you're interested in getting involved with the CUWiN project, this is an excellent opportunity to get your hands dirty, meet other community wireless affectionados, and get a fairly good understanding of the equipment we are using.

Let us know if you can make it at cu-wireless@cuwireless.net:

Saturday July 17, 2004 -- Noon
115 West Main St., Second Floor
PIZZA & WIRELESS NODES

All are welcome!

Plans To Educate Wi-Fi Implementers Via Organized Workshops, Documentation

Urbana, IL, July 3, 2004 - Following attendance at a European wireless conference, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) worked closely with the Association for Progressive Communications, Ecole Superieure Multinationale des Telecommunications, and wire.less.dk, a Dutch wireless consulting company, to draft a proposal designed to educate wireless implementers in Africa. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has funded the proposal for $225,000 US over the period from July 2004 to June 2006.

CUWiN's involvement in this program is key to sharing our cutting edge technology and experience with trainers and technologists in developing African countries. A positive benefit of making this technical information available online to this target audience is that it will then be available to wireless implementers globally.

The program will be used to teach trainers in Africa how to build out wireless infrastructure and programmers adding features to existing software and those creating new software. The diverse population of Africa faces unique hurdles which this program will overcome through a variety of techniques:

• Training: hands-on workshops in North, South, and West Africa;
• Materials development: documentation collected and translated to English, French, and Arabic; and
• Distributed knowledge base: development and maintenance of the CUWiN SourceForge development site to collect technical information of interest to wireless implementers and programmers

Through projects such as this, the groundwork is being laid to establish lasting communities of wireless networking practitioners in Africa -- and across the world -- with a vision of holding future in-depth training sessions in greater numbers once this path-finding and the program itself are concluded.

About CUWiN

The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) has built a communications network using wireless networking equipment. This is essentially the same "WiFi" equipment used in homes and offices, but CUWiN puts it on rooftops to connect neighbors and form a high-speed community network.

CUWiN's three-part mission is to:

• connect more people to Internet and broadband services;
• develop open-source hardware and software for use by wireless projects world-wide; and
• build and support community-owned, not-for-profit broadband networks in cities and towns around the globe.

CUWiN is a program of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. OJC Technologies is CUWiN's development home.

For additional information, contact:

Sascha Meinrath
Project Coordinator
Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network
(217)278-3933
sascha@cuwireless.net
http://www.cuwireless.net/

Urbana, IL, June 22, 2004 - After two years of extensive planning and debate, the City of Urbana voted yesterday to fund the acquisition of wireless equipment necessary to connect half-a-dozen sites in the downtown area to the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN). The proposal will fund wireless connectivity in several indoor and outdoor areas along with the nodes needed to connect these areas to CUWiN infrastructure. CUWiN is providing its labor pro-bono and none of the city funding will go to CUWiN.

The proposal to fund $18,600 in equipment purchases for this proof-of-concept project will come from the city's 2004-2005 fiscal budget was put forth by councilmember Danielle Chynoweth.

The City of Urbana's vote to approve this measure follows a larger trend in Urbana that demonstrates the outstanding community support from businesses and organizations alike for wireless networking. OJC Technologies, the Acorn Active Media Foundation, the Urbana Free Library, the Urbana Business Association, and the University of Illinois have all lent their support for the community networking initiative.

About CUWiN

The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) has built a communications network using wireless networking equipment. This is essentially the same "WiFi" equipment used in homes and offices, but CUWiN puts it on rooftops to connect neighbors and form a high-speed community network.

CUWiN's three-part mission is to:

• connect more people to Internet and broadband services;
• develop open-source hardware and software for use by wireless projects world-wide; and
• build and support community-owned, not-for-profit broadband networks in cities and towns around the globe.

CUWiN is a program of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. OJC Technologies is CUWiN's development home.

For additional information, contact:

Sascha Meinrath
Project Coordinator
Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network
(217)278-3933
sascha@cuwireless.net
http://www.cuwireless.net/

June 15, 2004
The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network, Prairienet, and Free Press invite you to join us for a national Community Wireless Networking Summit August 20-22, 2004 in Urbana, IL. Making the Connection: The 2004 National Summit for Community Wireless Networks will focus on grassroots action, impacting national regulations and policies, and building a coalition of local groups, researchers, policy leaders, decision-makers, and community activists.

It's time we organized to take the public airwaves back from corporate interests. Community Wireless Networks offer more services for cheaper prices and are owned by the communities that deploy them. Anyone interested in making the "public interest" the number one priority in our wireless telecommunications infrastructure should definitely attend this summit.

Community Wireless Developers from across North America will be demonstrating cutting-edge technologies; researchers and programmers will discuss recent breakthroughs and developments; and policy-makers and funders will strategize with participants on how to launch new initiatives.

See the Community Wireless Networking Summit website for more summit information.

Registration for the weekend-long Making the Connection Summit only costs $30 for students and low-income, $75 for all others. You can register via the website.

Have questions or want to present? Let us know!