Re: [gaia] Difference between FON and a "manyfolks Community Network"

Hello Rohan, All,

  So talking about user-extensibility as a criteria for defining
community networks may have an issue -

I agree that FON may not be classified as a community network since
its an extension of an user's already paid service and its presence is
in areas where network operators have existing network coverage.

However, a system like PAWS (http://publicaccesswifi.org/) for e.g.
uses the same FON model - but it targets people with socio-economical
challenges to get broadband access and its run purely by the
involvement of the community, a local stakeholder who has a benefit of
getting people connected and they work with a network operator to do
so. So a PAWS type system has a social objective of helping connect
your neighbour/community who may not be able to afford to connect
otherwise. But it involves the three stakeholders: users, network
operators and the so called VNO.

Ofcourse the PAWS type model is extensible as well - I think Freifunk
does that. Other community wireless mesh networks does similar for
e.g. talking to the Sarantaporo.gr folks their entire network
connecting 18 villages is backhauled over two ADSL lines volunteered
by home broadband owners (surprisingly with the blessings of their
network operator - not sure about their business objectives)..

Regards
Arjuna

On 19 June 2014 07:15, Rohan Mahy <rohan.mahy@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Just to briefly introduce myself, my most relevant experience to this group
> is that I helped build a large portion of a long-range 5Ghz WiFi backbone in
> Haiti with Inveneo; before that I was an active participant in the IETF in
> the RAI space for many years; currently I work as a field logistician for an
> international non-profit in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo.
>
> To me the key difference between FON and what the authors call a community
> network is the ability to actively enlarge the network. FON capitalizes on
> an existing network. It does not extend that network, it merely allows
> reciprocal access to that network by individual nodes. While this is already
> a good and useful thing, I think what many of the authors of the draft want
> to define is a user-extensible network. Below is my strawman definition.
>
> User-extensible network: A network in which any participant in the system
> may add link segments to the network in such a way that the new network
> segments can support multiple nodes and adopt the same overall
> characteristics as those of the joined network, including the capacity to
> further extend the network. Once these link segments are joined to the
> network, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between the previous
> extent of the network and the new extent of the network.
>
> Note that this covers a large part of the Free Network Foundation's Freedom
> 1 as posted by Roger, but not all of it.
>
> Practically I think this means that new segments of a user-extensible
> network do not involve IP address translation at the boundary of the
> network. This is important architecturally, so if someone has a good
> counter-example, please respond.
>
> For me it does not matter if the network is wired or wireless, licensed or
> unlicensed spectrum, or what technologies are used. It does not matter if
> the network has a fee structure or who administers the network. I agree with
> Steve that commercial extensible networks should be included. In Haiti and
> the parts of sub-Saharan Africa where I have lived (Benin, South Sudan, DRC)
> a commercial entity has a better chance of getting off the ground.
>
> Thanks,
> -rohan
>
>
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-- 
Arjuna Sathiaseelan | http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/