802.11n support, with its greater throughput and MIMO capacities has long been a milestone that open source developers have sought. My friend Aaron Kaplan IM-ed me other day (probably from the bowels of some hi-tech nerd bunker in Vienna) to let me know that, Eureka(!), 802.11n support has finally been put into the open source domain.

This morning, I received word from Joseph Bonicioli over at AWMN of some of the first systematic testing (and if you don't yet know about AWMN.net, you should take a look -- think mesh LAN with hundreds of services and applications, all distributed and community operated, and covering the metropolitan area of Athens Greece. I'm always amazed by the ignorant who claim mesh doesn't scale -- AWMN is just one example of how we could be doing broadband service provision better.

Here's what Joseph says:

...just wanted to share the joy. This week we successfully completed the first 802.11n long range link in the network. Its not very far (only 4KM) but it is very promising. 80 to almost 100Mbit TCP Traffic with 20MHz channels and ~150Mbit with 40MHz. Currently we are dealing with the redesign of our feeders and trying to find an optimal soft/hardware set. We are all really excited to see what AWMN V3 will bring to us. The first link has been routing traffic successfully at 80Mbit since the 11th of June 2009.

80Mbit sustained throughput over a 4KM link in an electromagnetically congested metro area is pretty impressive stuff. With announcements now coming about about 4X4 MIMO 802.11n configurations with 600Mbps capacity (i.e., throw 4 radios onto a devices that uses them all in concert), one can see how wireless connectivity speeds within networks are rapidly outpacing broadband connectivity outside of the network.

Good thing us community wireless networking uber-geeks already planned for that eventuality and built infrastructures that could take advantage of all this excess capacity. Ask your provider if they're doing likewise.

I've been in Atlanta this week at the NATOA Annual conference. I presented yesterday evening on, "Grassroots Wireless: State of the Art Networking" (3.7MB) -- it was a lot of fun.

Dharma Daily organized a big dinner for a bunch of us community broadband advocates -- loads of fantastically delicious Indian food. I ended up down at the end of the table with Chris Mitchell, Jonathan Lawson, and Geoff Daily -- lots of raucous debate of politics, community organizing, and the role of protest in civil society. We ended the night at the top floor bar of the conference hotel -- drinking local brew and jamming out bluegrass with our mandolin and guitar.

Looks like the New York Times had a reporter in the audience of the Open Source Government Panel at the Politics Online Conference. The panel was quite interesting -- lots of great questions from audience members -- many of whom have been working on projects to increase participation, transparency, accessibility, and accountability. Here's a few that were mentioned:

• Stet: software system designed to collect, organize and grok comments on texts made available online for public comment.
• Debateapedia.org: the "Wikipedia of debate and deliberation," it improves your ability to think through the complicated issues and debates you care about, take a confident stand, and take action as a citizen.
• PolicyCommons.org: where public resources used to improve participatory governance are identified, critiqued, organized, and discussed.
• OpenCongress.org: makes it easy to track any bill, issue area, or Member of Congress.
• KnowledgeAsPower.org: Washingtonians' nonpartisan resource for participation in the legislative process.

There's certainly many more... In the meantime, here's the New York Times story about the Open Source Government panel for those who'd like to follow the coverage:

March 5, 2008, 5:30 pm
Wanted: A More Digital Congress

By Ariel Alexovich

When it comes to taking advantage of all the Internet has to offer, some media gurus say Congress is a little behind the curve.

Danny Glover, a tech expert at the Media Research Center put it this way: Most of the world is adapting to the so-called “Web 2.0″ phase of interactive, open source Internet programming. Congress is “maybe in a Web 0.5 phase.”

The consensus among most panelists as the Politics Online Conference in Washington seemed to be that Congress and the White House aren’t doing all they can — and should — be doing to incorporate average Americans into government.

Even in 2008, legislators still seem to be in the “early adopter phase” of developing their personal Web sites, said Mr. Glover, who added that the few congressmen who keep blogs only do it to seem “cool.” (Panelist Johanna Shelton of Google, however, gave props to Ben Nelson, senator of Nebraska, for keeping an online diary of his recent trip to Iraq.)

Some of the ideas tossed out during the break-out sessions were making congressional proceedings available on Web sites other than C-Span and making more government documents accessible to search engines. That’s doable with “a couple hours of coding,” Ms. Shelton said.

Another way to share content online with voters, said Sascha Meinrath of the New American Foundation, is including access to a program like Google Documents, which allows multiple users to edit the same document. The idea is that if congressmen put a preliminary draft of a bill in an open source program on their sites, then specialists out in their home districts could amend the language or add information that hadn’t been addressed for the legislator to consider.

“We should be tapping into that expertise,” Mr. Meinrath said. “Peer production is a massive untapped resource.”

Mr. Glover added: “We’re trying to make it easier to be involved and get more people involved.”

Both of those gentlemen acknowledged that politicians face a kind of Catch-22 when it comes to making their work more transparent. Statements and videos they post online can be taken out of context or re-edited.

One of the most successful examples of a government-run Web site is WhiteHouse.gov, said David Almacy, a former Internet director for George W. Bush’s White House. The site gets about 3 to 7 million page views per week, and provides policy information — and the popular Barney Cam holiday videos — to Internet surfers.

(To see how far the president’s official Web page has come, Mr. Almacy suggested looking at the original White House site under Bill Clinton, which can be accessed through the National Archives in all its cutting-edge-at-the-time glory.)

The most technologically advanced move made by the White House came this year, when the White House submitted its 2008 budget electronically for the first time, complete with President Bush’s e-signature.

But the president’s page is far from open-source. An “Ask the White House” feature has been running since 2005, but Mr. Almaty said “this president will never blog.”

And Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, which pushes for more government transparency, said the White House site is mostly full of P.R.-friendly statements.

As with any revolution, Mr. Meinrath said, some uncertainty lies in whether Congress will ever make use of all the Internet tools available to it. “That’s an open question,” he said.

Mr. Glover had a, well, slightly morbid outlook: Congress might not become more technology-forward “until older people are voted out of office or die.”

Hoo-ray for open tech! Anne Eisenberg over at the New York Times featured the Neuros OSD -- an open source video recorder. The Neuros OSD is a pretty slick looking piece of hardware, but more importantly, everything about it is open -- all the way down to the circuitry. For those of us who've been advocating for open tech, this is an extremely interesting development (certain to rankle the RIAA, MPAA, and other entities fighting against our fair use rights.

Here's the NYTimes article:

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South Africa has thrown its hat into the non-proprietary ring. I expect that a growing number of countries will move in this direction as they do the cost-benefits analysis and quickly realize that FOSS technologies are far more cost-effective than proprietary tech (even when you have to pay to help with development efforts). My hope is that South Africa will consider supporting open source wireless technologies as well, since telecommunications infrastructure is desperately needed in many regions of the country.

From: www.govtech.com

South Africa Adopts Open Source Software Policy

Nov 1, 2007, News Report

While the South African open source software (OSS) market is still in its development stage, the recent decision by the South African Government to adopt a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) policy is a significant boost for the industry, according to a release from Frost and Sullivan.

A new analysis from Frost & Sullivan South African Open Source Software Market, finds that both the public and private sectors will benefit from the expansion of OSS, as the cost reductions realised will not only encourage the start up of new businesses, but will also allow the government to channel resources to much needed areas such as healthcare and education.

"OSS provides South Africa with an alternative to the costly applications of proprietary software vendors," notes Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Lindsey McDonald. "The government's adoption of the FOSS policy is a major driver for this market, as OSS will be used at all levels of the government where it is comparable to or more suitable than proprietary software."

There is a high level of collaboration among OSS developers and the government policy should serve to further increase collaboration in this market, continued the release. This in turn will result in the development of applications uniquely suited to the South African environment.

However, a general lack of awareness is threatening the extensive use of OSS. "Many potential users are not aware of the benefits or capabilities of OSS," says McDonald. "These include the potential to customize it for any purpose and the availability of the source code to all users. Additionally, there is a perceived lack of support for OSS software."

While this is true in some cases, a growing number of companies are also offering OSS support and customization services.

Overall, market participants need to challenge the view that OSS is simply for technology enthusiasts, concluded the release. The practical benefits of OSS should receive more attention. Focusing on the strengths of OSS rather than the alleged weaknesses of proprietary software would be a positive manner in which to promote the use of OSS.

I've been talking for awhile now about open tech and the coming disruptions to established business models and incumbent communications infrastructures. The Elevate.at Conference was a fantastic integration of music and politics -- DJs and tech-heads hanging out together in an underground bunker dug out of the mountain under a medieval castle (yes, it was quite cool -- a big thanks to Roland and Dan for inviting me).

Open Technology and the Wireless Future discusses the rise of the Intranet era, Intranet services and applications, and the COMMONS Project. I gave the presentation on October 25, 2007.

I'm attending the Broadband in Cities and Towns Conference that Jabari Simama hosts each year, having just arrived back stateside from a speaking tour and series of strategy workshops in Austria and Slovenia. My friend Helga Schmidt documented one of the (many) highlights of my trip -- Andreas Marksteiner's open source based quad copter. Imagine deploying solar nodes to rooftops in 2 minutes -- the quad copter currently only has 1-2kg of lift, but as a proof of concept it's quite interesting -- plus, it was incredibly cool to see this tool in action.

My good friend Ian Howard has been involved in a number of interesting and innovative projects over the years. This latest endeavor really pushes the envelope for grassroots media, DIY broadcasting, and community empowerment. The OpenFM Project is very exciting stuff!

Adapted Consulting Inc.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Laura Drewett
[T] +1-202-292-4242 / +1-647-722-5629 ext. 5011
[E] ldrewett@adaptedconsulting.com
[W] http://openfm.adaptedconsulting.com

RADIO ADAPTED FOR THE DEVELOPING WORLD;
Adapted Consulting Inc. Launches its New Open Source Radio Station —OpenFM

TORONTO, ON – August 21, 2007 – At midday in the Sahara, several dunes past Timbuktu, the sun is blistering hot. During the months when the Harmattan winds blow, the air is dense with sand. The strong winds blow constantly, so that by day’s end everything is left covered by a think reddish film of dirt – the floors, the furniture and, in the case of a radio station, all of the electronic equipment. Such conditions present their own unique set of challenges. So when Adapted’s Co-Founder, Frédéric Renet, couldn’t find a commercial radio that was right for this situation – durable, energy efficient, easy to repair and affordable – he decided to build his own. From this first design created to withstand the harsh climate of Mali comes Adapted’s OpenFM.

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A bunch of folks have e-mailed me recently regarding the recent FCC ruling on "Cognitive Radio Technologies and Software Defined Radios". The ruling has been making the rounds and I've just now had a chance to read through the actual FCC document. All in all, this final rule demonstrates a continuing and remarkable ignorance regarding SD and cognitive radio technology and open source development on the part of the FCC.

I first started talking with the FCC regarding these issues a few years back. For those who are just getting their feet wet on this issue, I'd recommend taking a look at my posting from two years back, "The Coming (Cognitive) Radio Revolution... AKA The FCC as Regulatory Ostrich." The issues I discussed in 2005 are eerily prescient of the FCC's recent ruling.

Unfortunately, this most recent FCC statement completely ignores the fundamental issue that SDRs cannot be stopped or controlled at the supplier/manufacturer any more than the FCC can stop file-sharing, P2P networking, or micro-broadcasting. People aren't going to seek FCC licensure for their software patches (such thinking demonstrates an amazing naïveté for the FOSS [Free Open Source Software] arena). In fact, this recent ruling all but guarantees that Open Source software developers will have less interaction with the FCC because the agency is dramatically increasing the "annoyance threshold" for independent developers to work with them. Even more importantly, most of the SDR development that the FCC is asserting control over is going to be happening outside of the US, and thus outside the FCC's jurisdiction in the first place. In other words, this ruling assumes an Amerocentrism to open source development that doesn't even exist.

In 2005 I said I expected widespread availability in 5-10 years. Today we're already beginning to see the first wave of SD and cognitive radio technologies. The price points for hardware are dropping rapidly (in fact, even faster than I'd anticipated), and development and deployment of wireless technologies is accelerating at an incredible pace. The FCC still has an opportunity to set aside wide swaths of spectrum for SDR and cognitive radio use and alleviate this looming crisis. However, their continuing failure to act in any meaningful way and the obvious ignorance that this ruling demonstrates regarding the open source community generally, makes me wonder if they've fallen so far out of touch with realities on the ground that they think they can simply ignore the problem or will it out of existence.

I remember when Harold Feld and I went in and spoke with FCC staff about mesh wireless technology a couple years ago. I'd brought up the issue that mesh networks (and community networks generally) needed to be addressed in their rules and regulations (and in CALEA, in particular). The staff responded by saying that mesh was not really a major concern because it didn't exist yet, and nothing I said seemed to impact that assessment. So the next time we went in, I brought a backpack full of CUWiN equipment and, in 20 minutes, set up a working mesh wireless network inside the FCC building. Only with this technology fully deployed and operational in their own building did they begin to take the issue seriously. Remarkably, CALEA has remained completely unchanged by the on the ground realities of distributed (mesh) broadband networks and today things are quite a mess because of the FCC's refusal to address technological realities.

In the end, the FCC should not be making rulings on issues they clearly do not understand. And the FCC clearly does not understand (as an organization) the realities of SDR and cognitive radio technologies (even though a number of individual staffers clearly do). As spectrum policy and open source software development continue to collide, it would be far wiser for the FCC to initiate dialog with the open source community, come to terms with the technological changes that make current spectrum licensure obsolete, and formulate solutions that parallel the realities of software defined and cognitive radio technologies. I'd like to see the FCC actually address the concerns I and many others have been raising with them for the past several years. Instead they seem to be burying their head even further into the sand.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Trieste, Italy-- The BMO Book Sprint Team is pleased to announce the release of the new free book, "How To Accelerate Your Internet: A practical guide to Bandwidth Management and Optimization using Open Source Software". The book was released in October 2006 under a Creative Commons license, and was written in an effort to help network architects understand and troubleshoot problems with managing Internet bandwidth, which often result in unnecessarily high operational costs in the developing world.

Network connections are very expensive in most parts of the world, and it is often costly and difficult to add additional network capacity. Therefore, effective management and optimization of bandwidth is crucial. Research and education benefit significantly from Internet resources, yet the majority of institutions take little or no action to manage their bandwidth usage. This waste results in high operating costs, slow network connections, and frustrated network users.

The goal of the book is to provide practical information on how to gain the largest possible benefit from your connection to the Internet. By prioritizing certain kinds of network activity, reducing the impact of spam and viruses, providing local content caching, and performing extensive monitoring and analysis of network usage, Internet consumption can be brought to manageable levels. This makes it possible to provide equitable access for all users, even when the available bandwidth is quite small.

But technical solutions only solve part of the problem. In order to prioritize network traffic, an organization needs to have a clear idea of the intended purpose of the network connection, as well as insight into how the connection is being used. The book addresses this complex topic by covering the three major components of effective bandwidth management: Effective policy, extensive monitoring & analysis, and solid network implementation. In addition, troubleshooting techniques, advanced performance tuning tips and tricks, and real-world case studies are also provided.

The Book Sprint began with online correspondence via email, which led to an initial face-to-face meeting of bandwidth management experts from around the world in May 2006. Intense online collaboration followed over the next few months, which then culminated in the production of the 300 page printed book, as well as a PDF and HTML version. The book was sponsored by the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (http://inasp.info/), and was produced in association with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (http://www.ictp.it/), Aidworld (http://www.aidworld.org/), and Hacker Friendly LLC (http://hackerfriendly.com/). By releasing this work under a Creative Commons license, the Book Sprint Team hopes to disseminate it as widely as possible, bringing this information into the hands of people who need it most.

The book can be downloaded for free, or a printed copy may be purchased at the book's website: http://bwmo.net.