

PirateBox-based internet? - JCB_K

Most of us have probably heard of the PirateBox in the last couple of days. (In case you didnt: [wiki.daviddarts.com]<p>I saw a comment somewhere that you might even be able to inter-connect those boxes. (could be lifehacker, not sure) Could that hypothetically mean that you can set up your own "grassroots internet"?<p>Anyone you'd want contact with would have to be connected to the same network of course, but if it's something that grows really big, then you don't need isp's etc.<p>Problem of course is inter-continental contact, but are there any other things which would make this not work?
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Swannie
Sure, it has and is being done.

GuiFi is a running example of a mesh network in Spain. <http://guifi.net/en>

Friefunk are a number of networking running in Germany
<http://wiki.freifunk.net/Kategorie:English>

Village Telco is a project using mesh wifi to provide voice telecoms in remote
parts of the world using custom hardware <http://www.villagetelco.org/>

The issues come with a smart mesh protocol. There are many around, 802.11s,
oslr, BATMAN, etc. (Village Telco & Friefunk use BATMAN).

See Project Serval for implementation of BATMAN on Android devices.
<http://www.servalproject.org/how-it-works>

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JCB_K
Very interesting, thanks!

Especially the Android-app has huge potential, when people actually use it.
Using the situation in Egypt as a case-study, loads of people there could've
had an app which inter-connects them and supplies them with a messaging-
system, and when the network could handle it, voice-contact.

