Do any of you have experience with community mesh networking? It seems like a fun time and a good way to connect with people (socially and technically lol) in the community. Not to mention the possibility of providing at least limited internet access to people who can't access it by conventional means for whatever reason. A community mesh network might also have organizing possibilities - especially because the state or the cops or a company can't just shut it off or look inside it as easily

  • chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]
    ·
    6 months ago

    Only time I ever got buy-in with non-techies was in uni when some friends and I brought the fast as fuck uni fiber speeds to the town bordering campus. On campus was 1Gbps, but the town was a mix of 4 different copper line providers with max speeds of 25Mbps/5Mbps. This was early days for some of that stuff, circa 2011.

    • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
      ·
      6 months ago

      Hell yeah, did that get people interested at all beyond self-interest? Bringing fast internet connection to people is cool and good too ofc

  • ZWQbpkzl [none/use name]
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    6 months ago

    It be interesting but its not like a ham radio where you just connect with people. You have to know people in your immediate vicinity willing to do it to establish a trusted network.

    • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
      ·
      6 months ago

      I have some friends willing to run nearby 802.11 nodes.... not enough though

      Probably would have to start out with a much more mixed network architecture.... maybe point-to-point radio links between the people in my city initially interested in running nodes, packet radio on the local ham bands, LoRa or something, etc...

      Idk if enough people would be interested but I'll have to ask around when I'm back home

  • xj9 [they/them, she/her]
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    6 months ago

    I've had a couple of false starts, but I've been getting more into community mesh stuff recently. I think the tech is really interesting by itself and I have some ideas for mobile adhoc mesh protocols, but finding people to build something with is hard.

    • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
      ·
      6 months ago

      Sorry for late reply, been touch-grass

      I got my amateur radio license recently and I just started thinking about this

      I don't really know very much at this point tbh but I would also be down to help with your project if you would like

      Idk if I could even find enough people in my city who would want to do something like this with me either... although I am willing to run/help people run network nodes based on things other than 802.11 which could help a lot with range (point-to-point radio links, maybe over microwave, more conventional packet radio on the amateur radio bands, LoRa, etc)

      • xj9 [they/them, she/her]
        ·
        6 months ago

        We've decided to try organizing the mesh project using briar. Here's my address: briar://adkjcwpltwvnqsjyn3shg3qeytrxxerlsmgl6pk2uw5o3tm3rxuhi

        DM me ur ID so I can add u back and then I'll invite you to the forum.

      • xj9 [they/them, she/her]
        ·
        6 months ago

        I'm currently chatting with some folks in a discord server, but idk if I'm able to invite others. I'm planning to spin up a lemmy instance to facilitate more project discussion. Pretty informal at this stage, but our current draft configs are mirrored here and I have some of my other projects on there as well.

        I originally wanted to have a cute little cluster of fossil repos, but the forum is text only and that's pretty limiting.