Rolling out a large-scale, open-source wifi project-suggestions?

[mauitek]

I live in Maui, Hawaii. With as many homes and medium sized businesses who have wifi networks wide open without even knowing it, I would think with a little education and incentive, we could create a large scale project for the masses. I will soon register the domain freewirelessmaui.com, or something to that effect, and was looking for tips/suggestions/foreseeable problems with implementing this type of infrastructure. Possibly a little more insight to what my thoughts are might help:

Kahului/Wailuku/Waikapu and outlying areas first (these towns are the closest together in the central part of Maui).

Can use own equipment, or I will PERSONALLY purchase a wireless router and/or adapter to give to them (I have up to $10K allocated for this project, will probably be a 'fleet' of WRT54G's), on the condition that they use it to further this purpose, and that they allow it to send general usage stats (uptime/bandwidth/connected users, etc maybe?) to a central server of some sort. I would also need help with this, maybe the openwrt project with custom software?

I'm hoping this could blossom into a community supported project that would help people learn, explore, and maybe split a bill with the neighbors!

 

[Shalmanese]

So people would ultimately be getting internet via commercial ISP's? There might be a legal problem with that, most broadband contracts have a clause against sharing in such a manner.

 

[mauitek]

I had never thought of creating my own ISP before. Seems like if I don't know the first thing about it already, I might have a wee bit of trouble, but I must say, I like your style... Anyone have any tips for starting your own ISP?

 

[MrScott81]

no what he's saying is, you couldn't use a personal broadband contract, and share it all around the neighborhood.

 

[mauitek]

I know, but I would rather try and create my own ISP anyway, because he's probably right. Even if things were such that this project got off the ground, all contracts have a clause that say "can change at a moments notice, and you're screwed to do anything about it".

 

[Shalmanese]

$10K is nowhere near enough to start your own ISP. Just a single T3 line at least would cost you about that much per year. Not to mention the cost for support, data centres, marketing, installation etc. Not going to happen.

Where are you getting the 10K from? My advice, resist the temptation to put ANY money into this whatsoever, keep it strictly at the amatuer, open souce kind of level. Once the ISP's smell someone with cash, then they'll pounce like sharks. If you pretend you are poor, then they would probably be willing to let it go ahead, as long as you don't make too much noise about it. There are plenty of community wireless groups out there, but all of them are organised by individuals.

 

[gsaldivar]

Originally posted by: Shalmanese
$10K is nowhere near enough to start your own ISP.