I had thoughts along similar lines. I did a bit of looking yesterday at lists of existing public Wi-fi hot spots in the Eugene-Springfield area. They seem to be largely concentrated in the Eugene downtown/University area (albeit the lists I looked at are obviously non-comprehensive given that each has entries not included in others).
Most are owned by commercial entities and this caused a series of small light bulbs to flick on in my brain. -- Building on the foundation of the existing Wi-Fi hotspots if feasible could go a long way toward establishing the needed node density; -- These businesses already have multi-user internet access in place; -- They might be persuaded to invest in hardware needed to provide internet access for mesh networking nodes if there were a value-add business justification; -- Advertising for sponsoring businesses on the mesh network log-in screen (or immediately after logging in) might provide such a justification (if that's feasible); -- Such advertising would not need to be limited to businesses who install hardware but could also be for those that make other contributions, e.g., money, equipment, etc. But all of the above needs a reality check so please kick every hole in it you can. Best regards, Paul _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
