On Jul 1, 2009, at 4:39 PM, Ray J wrote: > The original post asked about information to > > " implement a mesh network in the neighborhood around a > fixed address like a school. The goal would be to provide free > Internet access primarily for apartment residents" > > He never said anything about the greater TC area.. it sounds like he > was thinking of providing access over a few blocks fixed around a > central point.. pretty big difference. Hi all, Let me "de-cloak" a bit more here. I'm the Chief Technology Officer for the Osseo School District. We're a big district in the NW suburbs (30 schools and 21,000 students) with many students who don't have ready access to the Internet at home. We have a number of elementary schools where the majority of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. A few of those schools have apartment buildings very near the school building. Many of the residents of those apartments send their kids to our schools, and it tends to be a highly mobile population of students. We're embarking on a pilot project at several of our sites that will encourage students to bring their own technology to school whether it's a laptop, iPod, netbook, or cell phone. In schools that don't have as many students with access to those kinds of devices, I anticipate the need to provide some loaner equipment for kids. That's where the mesh network comes in. I think it would be really interesting to extend our wireless LAN to the apartments near some of our schools and provide safe Internet access to kids outside the school day. That's where I'm coming from. I spent some time today looking at the open-mesh.com site, and I plan to have some of my staff do some investigating too. Maybe some members of this list would be interested in contributing time or talent to this project if it ever takes off someday. Let me know off list if you're interested. -Tim -- Tim Wilson, The Savvy Technologist Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA Educational technology guy, Linux and OS X fan, Grad. student, Daddy mailto:wilson at visi.com aim: tis270 blog: http://technosavvy.org