Creating a General Purpose Network Through Wireless Mesh

Jameson Dungan describes a wireless mesh network he is building in Norfolk, Virginia, meant as a general-purpose network that runs independently of the internet and could keep working during outages or emergencies. He walks through the hardware, including directional links between buildings, access points, outdoor-rated cabling, cheap used antennas mounted on rooftops, and solar and battery backup. He also explains the basics of the first three OSI layers and how the network is routed.

Software-defined radios and small Raspberry Pi nodes collect local data such as aircraft and ship broadcasts, NOAA weather satellite imagery and accurate time from a GPS-based server. Offline archives, including Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, Stack Overflow and medical references, are hosted on the network. The talk then turns to amateur radio, covering packet systems that can relay messages and reach SMS and email, along with routing protocols such as OSPF and Babel that suit mesh topologies.

The closing section covers the non-technical side: getting access to rooftops and buildings, partnering with local groups and the city, and inviting others to add nodes and content. Dungan stresses learning by iterating and sharing failed tests. The Q&A raised open problems such as delay-tolerant networking and distributed naming. The network is still early and mostly a one-person effort.