Wirelesspt is a non-commercial open grassroots initiative to support free computer networks that is not dependent of central infrastructure, corporation or entity which is done by the ordinary citizen provide free, open and democratic access to the highways of information technologies helping people and organizations implementing wireless networks that will benefit their communities.
A grassroots movement is one which uses the people in a given district, region, or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at the local, regional, national, or international level. Grassroots movements are associated with bottom-up, rather than top-down decision making, and are sometimes considered more natural or spontaneous than more traditional power structures. Grassroots movements, using self-organization, encourage community members to contribute by taking responsibility and action for their community. Grassroots movements utilize a variety of strategies from fundraising and registering voters, to simply encouraging political conversation. Goals of specific movements vary and change, but the movements are consistent in their focus on increasing mass participation in politics. These political movements may begin as small and at the local level, but grassroots politics as Cornel West contends are necessary in shaping progressive politics as they bring public attention to regional political concerns.
The project also invests in investigating free, open source, digital, information and telecommunication technologies as well as to promote, educate and supply technological information to teach and educate its surrounding social environment about the importance of online privacy and security.
WirelessPT is also part of an international movement for wireless community networks in Europe. The Project counts with local communities and was started in the community of Moitas Venda in Portugal.
Wireless community networks (WCNs) or wireless community projects are organizations that take a grassroots approach to providing a viable alternative to municipal wireless networks for consumers.
Moitas Venda is a civil parish (freguesia) in Alcanena Municipality, in the Médio Tejo Subregion of Centro Region, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 866, in an area of 6.75 km².
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country located mostly on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost sovereign state of mainland Europe, being bordered to the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and east by Spain. Its territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments.
Goals
The main goal of WirelessPT is to build a large scale free wireless Wi-Fi network that is decentralized and owned by those who run it and to support local communication. The project is governed by its own agreement which was inspired in the Pico peering Agreement where participants agree upon a network that is free from discrimination and upholds net neutrality. Among other communities like guifi.net and freifunk, WirelessPT has and shares similarities.
Decentralized computing is the allocation of resources, both hardware and software, to each individual workstation, or office location. In contrast, centralized computing exists when the majority of functions are carried out, or obtained from a remote centralized location. Decentralized computing is a trend in modern-day business environments. This is the opposite of centralized computing, which was prevalent during the early days of computers. A decentralized computer system has many benefits over a conventional centralized network. Desktop computers have advanced so rapidly, that their potential performance far exceeds the requirements of most business applications. This results in most desktop computers remaining idle. A decentralized system can use the potential of these systems to maximize efficiency. However, it is debatable whether these networks increase overall effectiveness.
Network neutrality, or more simply net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all Internet communications equally and not discriminate or charge differently based on user, content, website, platform, application, type of equipment, or method of communication.
Among several goals the project includes:
Development of mesh networks for communities built by the ordinary citizen
Foster free access to communication technologies
Establish wireless connectivity with other communities and regions
Sharing and developing technological communication resources with and for their communities
Promote, educate and provide technical information on wireless networks to communities environment about the importance of online privacy, security and democracy.
A community project is a term applied to any community-based project. This covers a wide variety of different areas within a community or a group of networking entities. Projects can cover almost anything, including the most obvious section of concern to any community, the welfare element. Welfare community projects would for example be, a locally run and locally funded orphanage; a Christmas dinner kitchen for the homeless. Another important sector of importance to the community would be charity. Charitable projects in the community can include, but are not limited to, ecological charities concerned with either the maintenance of green spaces, or in some cases, the prevention of the reduction/removal of green spaces. An old clothes collection service would also be a community-based charity project. One important subdivision of community projects, and at times overlooked, is those of an economic nature such as LETS. The highlight of economic community projects is what is known as Transition Towns. Most economic community projects are designed at creating some sort of economic autonomy.
A wireless mesh network (WMN) is a communications network made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology. It is also a form of wireless ad hoc network.
An ad hoc network refers to technologies that allow network communications on an ad hoc basis. Associated technologies include:
If one of these routers fail, this special software automatically calculates a new path to the final destination. This software is called mvwrt firmware. It is based on OpenWrt and other free software such as LEDE and was specifically designed for the needs and challenges of the project.
A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks. Routers perform the traffic directing functions on the Internet. Data sent through the internet, such as a web page or email, is in the form of data packets. A packet is typically forwarded from one router to another router through the networks that constitute an internetwork until it reaches its destination node.
In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for the device's specific hardware. Firmware can either provide a standardized operating environment for the device's more complex software, or, for less complex devices, act as the device's complete operating system, performing all control, monitoring and data manipulation functions. Typical examples of devices containing firmware are embedded systems, consumer appliances, computers, computer peripherals, and others. Almost all electronic devices beyond the simplest contain some firmware.
OpenWrt is an open source project for embedded operating system based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. The main components are Linux, util-linux, musl, and BusyBox. All components have been optimized to be small enough to fit into the limited storage and memory available in home routers.
There are many different developed versions of the firmware depending on the hardware and protocols that local communities decide to use. Having previously tested olsr, WirelessPT decided to work with Ad Hoc and the B.A.T.M.A.N.routing protocol as the firmware base routing protocol.
Computer hardware includes the physical, tangible parts or components of a computer, such as the cabinet, central processing unit, monitor, keyboard, computer data storage, graphics card, sound card, speakers and motherboard. By contrast, software is instructions that can be stored and run by hardware. Hardware is so-termed because it is "hard" or rigid with respect to changes or modifications; whereas software is "soft" because it is easy to update or change. Intermediate between software and hardware is "firmware", which is software that is strongly coupled to the particular hardware of a computer system and thus the most difficult to change but also among the most stable with respect to consistency of interface. The progression from levels of "hardness" to "softness" in computer systems parallels a progression of layers of abstraction in computing.
The Better Approach To Mobile Adhoc Networking (B.A.T.M.A.N.) is a routing protocol for multi-hop mobile ad hoc networks which is under development by the German "Freifunk" community and intended to replace the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR).
A routing protocol specifies how routers communicate with each other, distributing information that enables them to select routes between any two nodes on a computer network. Routers perform the "traffic directing" functions on the Internet; data packets are forwarded through the networks of the internet from router to router until they reach their destination computer. Routing algorithms determine the specific choice of route. Each router has a prior knowledge only of networks attached to it directly. A routing protocol shares this information first among immediate neighbors, and then throughout the network. This way, routers gain knowledge of the topology of the network. The ability of routing protocols to dynamically adjust to changing conditions such as disabled data lines and computers and route data around obstructions is what gives the Internet its survivability and reliability.
History
Founded in January 2011 in Portugal after 2 years of planning the project was first started by its founder with a setup of 9 nodes and 5 gateways in 3 weeks to cover an area of 6 square kilometres using ddwrt firmware.
In 2013 the project developed its own firmware and expanded their nodes count as well as coverage until today and became a registered national trademark in 2016 after participating in the Battlemesh v9 event.
The project is currently active and stable also because it very easy to install the wireless kit specifically created for non-tech-savvy users and with the use of the self-managed and auto configured firmware on off-the-shelf wireless routers a node is fully functional without human interaction soon as the firmware is uploaded to a node.
During its development of the project, it also created one of the best sources of dyi wireless documentation that can be found online offering solutions for small to large projects.
External links
Official website also available on the Tor hidden service network]
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Ninux.org is a Wireless Network Community in Italy, a free, open and experimental computer network. The main idea is that users build their own computer network without central control or property, as opposed to traditional Internet service providers (ISP), where a single entity owns and manages the network. The initiative is based on the Ninux manifesto, the Wireless Commons Manifesto and the Picopeering Agreement. In these agreements participants agree upon a network that is free from discrimination, in the sense of net neutrality.
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