[OpenWireless Tech] San Francisco Community Broadband Network

[Tim Pozar]

Just an introduction from me (Tim Pozar) and the Community Broadband Network (CBN) that is in San Francisco.

I will skip the history of how it started and cut to what we are doing now.

Currently we have fiber and wireless going to 50+ sites around San Francisco.  Much of this is connected with gig fiber.  Most of the fiber sites are San Francisco Housing Authority sites where we are delivering free bandwidth to the residents either via copper ethernet and/or wireless.

As the wireless is not encrypted or has a captive portal, anyone that is in the neighborhood and can get the signal can also connect.  

Besides providing transit for the CBN, Internet Archive is also using some of this infrastructure to put up their own radios.  They have radios on various buildings and then tie back to the fiber that the CBN provides.

The next step on this project is to provide a way for anyone to connect to designated access points on sites like Twin Peaks and provide backbone connections to their neighborhoods.  We have about a half a dozen folks doing this now.  Ralf Muehlen at Internet Archive has developed the start of an
auto-provisionain system that we would like to incorporate.  There is a bit of work to put in the back end infrastructure (software and hardware) to have this happen so it isn't on line yet.

We are always looking for skilled network and wireless folks that can lend a hand.  If you want to know more or contact us about using the network or providing help, drop me a line.

Tim Pozar