Building Wireless Community Networks: Implementing the Wireless Web [Paperback]

Rob Flickenger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596002041 | ISBN-13: 978-0596002046 | Publication Date: December 15, 2001 | Edition: 1st ed

In Building Wireless Community Networks, author and O'Reilly network administrator Rob Flickenger offers a compelling case for building wireless networks on a local level: They are inexpensive, and they can be implemented and managed by the community using them, whether it's a school, a neighborhood, or a small business. This nuts-and-bolts guide provides all the necessary information for planning a network, getting the necessary components, and understanding protocols that you need to design and implement your network. The wireless Internet infrastructure, also known as Wi-Fi, is based on the 802.11b standard.

The book covers Rob's experience with the Sebastopol Community Network (NoCAT), a multi-tiered network that provides wireless access for O'Reilly employees and free Web browsing to anyone in the area who has a Wi-Fi card in his or her computer. He describes his experience in using 802.11b, selecting the appropriate equipment, finding antenna sites, and coping with the general problems of outdoor networking.

Building Wireless Community Networks starts off with basic wireless concepts and essential network services, while later chapters focus on specific aspects of building your own wireless networks. The final chapter is a detailed journal of Rob's experiences in building his first community network. He begins with his first attempts at using a wireless card at a conference, covers the real-life experience of trying something new, and ends with notes from the Portland Summit, a national gathering of wireless aficionados.

If you want to join the grassroots effort to build freely available wireless Internet infrastructures in your community, this book is invaluable.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Certain cities--Singapore is one example--have begun to outfit gathering places like airport lounges and downtown coffee shops as "hot spots" that are served by wireless Internet antennas. It's possible for anyone with an IEEE 802.11b card in a laptop to sit down in one and have Internet access immediately. The author of Building Wireless Community Networks, Rob Flickenger, thinks this is a great idea. He's written this small, thin volume to explain to readers why wireless networking is a community asset, and to bring them up to speed on the technologies available for creating wireless hot spots. Community here means a collection of people, as in a town or neighborhood.

Wireless networking protocols are complicated, but IEEE 802.11b and the products that have sprung up around it (like Apple's AirPort and similar offerings from Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems) are pretty easy to set up and integrate into a network. Flickenger's treatment deals with these admirably but places more emphasis on configuring operating systems (notably Linux) to work as wireless gateways for transient users. The really fun reading has to do with custom antennas, though. Flickenger explains--no kidding--how to convert a Pringles potato-chip can into an antenna for wireless networking and goes into detail on how to work around the challenges posed by topography and human-made obstacles. This is a smart book about one of the most exciting frontiers in computer networking. --David Wall

Topics covered: Means of delivering wireless network access (mainly Internet access) to rooms, buildings, communities, and whole geographic regions of up to a few miles in diameter. Design and placement of access points, as well as configuration of network nodes, is covered in detail, as are the legal and political aspects of building a wireless network for general community use.

Review

"Read in conjunction with online sources for UK legal information such as the Radiocommunications Agency (www.radio.gov.uk) it provides a useful introduction to a complex and interesting subject, which, despite the small size, is good value for money." - Davey Winder, PC Pro, June "It's not only an informative volume, but a very good read too." MCAD, June 2002

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 150 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st ed edition (December 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596002041
• ISBN-13: 978-0596002046
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #859,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Relevant, accessible, and thin, December 30, 2002

By 

G. Crisp (Marietta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Building Wireless Community Networks: Implementing the Wireless Web (Paperback)

Building Wireless Community Networks has three attributes I look for in a technology book:

- It's relevant
- It's accessible
- It's thin

For those who are unfamiliar with wireless networking, or those who are relatively new to it, this is a good introduction to the technology. For me, the book did a fine job of relating my knowledge of wired networking to that of wireless, showing how one is an extension of the other. It's a practicle introduction to how microwave technology enables wireless networking, and I found it to be a good primer on microwave communications in general.

The book's truer purpose, though, is as an introduction to the community of wi-fi enthusiasts, and to how this medium can (and is) being used to provide data bandwidth to places unheard of just a few years ago.

I found the sections on basic, networking configuration (ch. 3, I believe) a bit slow, but still a decent refresher. For someone who has never set up a network before, this section would be more informative. More useful were the sections on wireless tools, microwave antenna and cabling technology (with a wonderful discussion of signal loss that can occur at various points in the connection, and why), and site surveys and topology factors. Also, the discussion on the Pringles can antenna was amusing.

This book is for you if:
- You want a basic tutorial on wireless networking technology
- You have worked with wired networks, but are unfamiliar with RF and microwave communications
- You have an interest in setting up your own wireless community network (free or otherwise)

This book may not be for you if:
- You are looking for an in-depth discussion of the network protocols that are the basis of wi-fi
- You enjoy lugging around 500-page technical books that (also) only have about 80 pages or real, useful content.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Intended for Practical Implementation, January 23, 2005

By 

Steve Amerige "www.fatbear.com" (Morgan Hill, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Building Wireless Community Networks, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

I have a T1 line to my home in the country and wanted to provide my neighbors within a mile or so with a share of my bandwidth. What I lacked was a knowledge of what components to buy, what the practical differences are between components, ways to throttle bandwidth to individual neighbors, how to prevent bandwidth theft by neighbors who are not sharing in the cost of the T1 line, which components are "safe buys," what is involved in installation, what other skills are required, and where I can buy the needed components.

The title of this book started with "Building," so I hoped that it would be a practical book that focused on actually building a wireless network. Unfortunately, I was disappointed because the "building" is at an academic level, not a practical, commercial one. The requirements I have above are treated poorly, if at all. So, while this book may be great for people looking for a starter in becoming engineers or for professors looking for an academic textbook, it is less satisfactory for consumers looking to build a community network. Some specifics by book chapter:

1. Wireless Community Networks: history, some problems for ISPs, and what happens if the shift goes from the ISP to the individual network member. Nothing practical here.

2. Defining Project Scope: It doesn't. Instead, it talks about protocols such as 802.11, 802.11a, .... The "Hardware Requirements" section doesn't take you from your needs to what you'll require. It simply says that you will require hardware based on your needs and says you'll need to survey your site.

3. Network Layout: Is a bottom-up chapter with buzz words: Layer n, BSS, IBSS, DHCP, DNS, NAT, WEP, more on protocols, and security. This chapter fails to take one from problems to solutions. But, now you know the terms when you talk about actually building a WiFi network.

4. Using Access Points: Defines a lot of them, not how they solve your problems.

5. Host-Based Networking: The preface says this chapter provides a step-by-step guide to building your own access points using Linux and some hardware. But, the chapter itself just defines some terms and has a few scripts. It's not a step-by-step guide from my perspective, and it doesn't define the problem that is being solved nor who would want this.

The chapters that follow follow the pattern of bottom-up thinking: defining terms and disconnected ideas. This book would have been much better if it lived up to its title and had chapters that dealt with different end-user needs (different kinds of networks), and how each of these problems would be solved, providing answers to the requirements I listed above in my first paragraph.

I give this book not one star, but two because it does provide some terminology that serves as a starting point with wireless vendors for the discussion of actually building a wireless community network.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Building Wireless Community Networks Review, March 3, 2002

By 

Donald W. Larson (San Marcos, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Building Wireless Community Networks: Implementing the Wireless Web (Paperback)

Building Wireless Community ... First Edition, January 2002, 138 pages
By Rob Flickenger
© Copyright 2002 by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
ISBN 0-596-00204-1
Review written March 3, 2002
By Donald W. Larson, O'Reilly Book Evangelist
Email: [e-mail]
...

Anyone who wants to learn about the usage of WiFi, more commonly known as 802.11b wireless should order this book now and read it immediately upon delivery!

Each and every chapter explains is sufficient detail what the new standard is, how to use it and extend the range legally for broadcasts. Anytime someone points out through the purchase of a can of Pringles and then turns that chip container into a radio antenna...to increase the effective range of WiFi, is a signal (pun intended) that value pricing is just a few steps away.

Rob demonstrates his mastery of the following topics, the understanding of topological maps, db signal loss over distance, firewalls, NAT, and routing as they pertain to WiFi. For those readers who just want to hook up a wireless 802.11b router and configure their network, this book covers that very well.

The book's scope covers the Apple AirPort Base Station and also Linux networks. Also the need for channel separation and bridging of networks for roaming purposes is described.

Then there is the section on the types of external antennas and how to build one from the earlier mentioned Pringles can.

Obviously, wireless brings a whole new set of questions to the security aspect of wireless networks. Rob explains some techniques that should help and provides urls to other community efforts to help find additional resources and support. See NoCat...as an example of the latter.

Appendix

This part of the book includes a section on calculating the loss of signal strength over distances from 0.5 to 20.0 miles! Also provides links to community wireless sites and FCC Part 15 Rules governing the spectrum that 802.11b occupies.

Index

Complete and adequate.

General Book Comments

It is my opinion that many neighborhoods could employ the suggested solutions and bypass the big telco's and ISP's to bring unrestricted Internet access to small neighborhood WAN's at a cost lower or equal to what cable and DSL providers offer.

Rob has done an excellent job in presenting this new technology. He takes the time to explain technical details in ways easy for the reader to understand.

Rating 10 out of 10. This rating is my own personal value system and as such is very subjective. I think a rating of 5 means I would read finish reading a book. A rating of 10 would indicate I had trouble putting a book down and have no complaints at all about it.