L. Aaron Kaplan works in Vienna Austria. He spoke on Session 3: What We Can Learn from Muni Networks at the Freedom to Connect 2009 conference. If you'd like more info about the conference, see http://freedom-to-connect.net/

1. Funkfeuer + community
wifi networks in Europe
L. Aaron Kaplan (aaron@lo-res.org)
Presentation held at the Berkman Center, Cambridge
March 2009

2. Open Source

3. Open Hardware

4. Open Networks

5. It [radio] is purely an apparatus for distribution,
for mere sharing out. So here is a positive
suggestion: change this apparatus over from
distribution to communication. The radio would
be the finest possible communication apparatus in
public life, a vast network of pipes.
Bertolt Brecht
«The Radio as an Apparatus of
Communication»
(in Blätter des Hessischen Landestheaters, Darmstadt, No. 16, July 1932)

6. Current Internet
• scale free
• a lot of concentration on key nodes
• getting more and more centralized

7. Contrast

9. Contrast
• less scale free, more meshed or completely
meshed
• decentralized, anarchic
• more resistant to failures?
• mobile
• innovation at the edge

10. Motivation
• Censorship resistant networks (“3 strikes out”)
• (anti-surveillance), anti data retention
• Independence, running own network
• financially stable, self-sustaining

11. How it started in
Vienna
• q/spot history
• Book - asked if we can use 10 existing locations
for free
• Tested AODV, mobilemesh, OLSR. OLSR sort of
worked. Same results in Berlin Freifunk
• Public presentation, invitation to the public

12. Where are we now?
• aaron@viviroof:~$ ip route show table all | wc -l
674
• 240 roofs
• repeated in Graz, Bad Ischl, Weinviertel
• halfway distance to Bratislava
• longest links 30km
• vibrant very active community
• fibre co-sharing / digging

13. In parallel...
• Guifi.net Barcelona
• Djursland - forgotten by the telco industry
• Berlin Freifunk
• Athens wireless
• Paris Sans Fils
• czfree network

14. Principles of Funkfeuer
• Free, everybody is allowed to join
• Pico peering agreement. Free transit
• Bandwidth provided by association
• Experimental network
• Value is (in) the network

15. Financial Sustainability

16. Colo center

17. Other networks in
Europe
• Guifi.net: ~ 5000 nodes
• athens wireless network: ~ 2400 nodes
OLSR+ BGP
• czfree.cz: ~ 10.000 users
• freifunk.net: ~ 800 nodes many cities in .de
• ...

18. Athens wireless
network

19. czfree
• Covering almost the whole country
• interconnection of small WISPs

21. Guifi.net

23. Freifunk
• Sharing of DSL lines
• completely decentralized
• Freifunk firmware
• many cities in Germany

25. Muni Wifi in Torino

29. We took back
Boston ;-)

31. Thanks!