[wsfii-discuss] Battle for Barcelona

Wed Jul 23 07:17:54 UTC 2008

We do use intensively 2.4 (13 overlapped channels) and 5GHz (19 non 
overlapped channels!!!)  bands intensively outdoors. Regulation is not 
that clear about outdoor usage, so when there are doubts, we do simply 
use it intensively, and therefore "de facto" we do open the spectrum to 
any unlicensed band, that's not a concern right now and there is no 
discussion here. The fact is when there is an open network, is not that 
easy to distinguish if is for commercial use or not (professionals and 
SME can also use open networks for their private needs). I would suggest 
you to review German regulations on this, because on urban areas, the 
usage of 5GHz as open spectrum at the backbone level I would say that is 
strategic given the few and noisy channels available at 2.4GHz, often 
there are obsolete regulations about that, coming from the 20th century 
(i.e. previous to the wireless communications becoming affordable to the 
general public, and previous to the 2002 EU directives).
In general, I would suggest to double check the regulations followed in 
all EU countries after the EU 2002 "Telecomms package", in particular, 
the 2002/20, since there clearly states that the countries can't longer 
provide individual authorizations for being granted for data 
telecommunications, and substitute this by general authorizations, which 
in the non licensed spectrum means general usage, and therefore includes 
community/open networks, because if not, that means that could mean that 
the country regulation is still protecting some traditional operators 
for being dominant against newcomers or a truly free competition/general 
usage. About outdoor usage of the non-licensed band, if the usage is not 
neutral, that could mean a privatization of a public domain, which of 
course could be questioned, no question that outdoor is public while 
indoor could be considered as private.

Yes, I know about many communities within the EU you mention. In 
particular I was also on Athens some time ago, great job. But now we're 
not looking just for community/open networks directory or list, we want 
to find those who have actively have cooperated with administrations at 
any scale, we just know about our case, and maybe Barcelona officials 
are right in terms that we are an exception within the EU doing so?

I'm very sad to hear what you mention about politician support for a 
private but free (as in beer) network... We face (and fight) this model 
and that's why I'm saying "battle". Open Network for us is, like the 
internet original idea, a network build from many actors who agree to 
connect between them, so there is no single operator/owner who take 
control over what you can transfer or not over the network, which is 
different from just having non encrypted spectrum of free internet 
access. On the other hand, this common usage is about common sense if we 
talk about an spectrum available to everybody. This civilian 
multiple/owned schema has to include everybody: individuals, 
communities, enterprises and administrations (if we exclude somebody, is 
not longer open). Cities around the world have no other option than 
build their city owned networks, so the goal is include those 
infrastructures withing the open networks, instead of franchising them 
to private operators or making them for private only usage, that is, 
city owned network which extends open networks, not compete against, or 
imposing single franchisers/dominant monopoly. To support this we can 
also mention the big failures of many franchised models operated privately.

The key is that the network as a whole  can't have ownership (or a 
single ownership). Those concepts are which we are vertebrating through 
guifi.net, and I have no idea of how will end this Barcelona chapter (in 
fact started with the wrong perspective from our point of view), but at 
least we are using that to gain some support from some politicians.

About from where this funding is coming from, is not Google in this 
case, supposedly have to come from the city itself, but I do suspect 
that they can even plan to get funds from the EU...

Interesting thoughts! let me share at the list! ;)

Ramon.

En/na ulf kypke ha escrit:
> hi ramon,
> i hope i understand your mail correct.
> as far as i know, building wireless networks based on 802.11, ism 
> bands 2.4 and 5 ghz is not allowed "outdoor" in spain (or a very few 
> channels), in any way or only if not commercial based service? correct 
> me if i am worng.  here in germany  you can use 2.4 ghz in any way 
> (channel 1-13), indoor and outdoor. 5 ghz based ism frequencies are a 
> bit different. here, some frequencies are only(!) allowed outdoor, if 
> commercial based service, so officially freifunk, or other private 
> based wireless networks can not use this band.
> well, the next question is, if barcelona gets 500 new hotspots and 
> they are indoor, like in schools, libraries,  town hall, cafes and 
> bars as well, but only indoor(!) cafes and bar will cost some day rent 
> to place such a hotspot (the owner will see money as well). in/on 
> public buildings you can save those costs. so questions is, who they 
> will offer the service - for free, rich tourists with fancy handheld's 
> and pda's, or pupils and students in libraries or everyone, even at 
> home on their desktop pc's? if so, and based on 802.11 technique and 
> mostly worldwide wifi frequencies, what is the solution, as in many 
> other eu countries, the 2.4 ghz ism band is at least 11 but mostly 13 
> channels wide. so spain should allow to use this channles as well. 
> this need to be fixed!
> so you wrote, only indoor, this is the may issue, and needs to be solved.
> you ask for some examples in other eu countries and cities.
> as you know, because of many reasons not to get broadband internet 
> access, mostly all this "wireless communities" were born and one of 
> this was freifunk.
> but not only in germany. greece, denmark, holland, frace, uk, poland, 
> oh i forgot italy!
> if i have some time tomorrow, i will make a list of it, but google 
> will do this maybe better ;)
> as i remember, the wireless network in athens was one of the biggest 
> with a lot of nodes, when i started to play around with selfmade 
> antennas to get broadband internet access in 2003. in those days we 
> used nodedb.com to place our open hotspots, here in berlin 
> friedrichshain.
> by the way "free" in my interpretation/use, means not automatically 
> free internet access, but free, to the wifi service so no encryption.
> i think the hole discussion of providing a citywide any city owned 
> wireless network is very interesting, we had such a talk some weeks 
> ago in the berlin city council as well and again.
> while the wireless community weekcomunity wekend 08 in april here in 
> berlin, one guy from the green party asked in a round table, what he 
> can ask the berlin senat to do to support (more) the wireless 
> community freifunk, for example to make it more easy to install a node 
> on a rooftop of a school. and so one.
> the result and answer of this, was just a week ago they made a press 
> release not(!) to use a community based wireless infrastructure to 
> build there "free wireless network" but a private, company owned.
> it is a big discussion on some blogs, like netzpolitik.de
> here you will find a link to an interview with laura as well.
> http://netzpolitik.org/2008/freies-wlan-und-der-berlin-senat/
> so my last question, where is the almost 5 mio. funding from - fon 
> (aka google)?
>
> regards ulf
>
>