Work meeting of the WISP-in-a-box project

The WISP-in-a-box project

Date

June 2-3-4, 2008

9-17 h

Location

Meraka Institute, Building 43 C, Hummingbird Room (C128, ground floor)

Pretoria

Invitation List

People and organisations with an active interest in building a concrete product that helps bringing

connectivity to underserviced, underprivileged and overcharged communities in Africa.

Invitation list:

Steve Song / Shuttleworth Foundation (monday only)
Rael Lissoos / Dabba
Henry Marnitz / Ndlovu Medical Centre (wednesday only)
Mark Summer, Inveneo (with request to forward to Ubiquiti)
Elektra
Mike Jensen (not confirmed)
Kobus Roux, Meraka (NOT monday)
Karel Matthee, Meraka
Kim Gush, Meraka
David Johnson, Meraka
Chris Morris, Meraka
Grant Cambridge, Meraka
Shela Boshomane, Meraka (monday and wednesday)
George James, Meraka
Johann Hugo, Meraka
John Hay, Meraka
Ajay Makan, Meraka
Sebastian Buettrich

More proposals are welcome!

Budgets for travel, if needed: Please contact us!

Contact

Sebastian

mail: sebastian@less.dk

skype: sebastian_buettrich

cell: (+27) (0) 79 915 32 92

Timeplan

The timeplan is draft level and will be adjusted to people's ability to join for limited periods.

The first day will be dedicated to the organizational layer,

introducing the various projects and teams, discussing the business models, identifying overlap of work agendas as well as the main challenges each of the projects are seeing.

The second day will move down to detail level, moving from business and organizational models to technology requirements/specifications.

The third day

Day 1 - Monday, June 2

Morning

Creating Context

Introductions, Presentations of participants

(Short 10 mns, informal project introductions)

Introduction and WISPiab Project (Sebastian Buettrich)
Dabba / Orange Farm / Village Telco (Rael Lissoos)
Ndlovu Medical Centre (Henry Marnitz) (moved to Wednesday, June 4)
Peeble's Valley Mesh (David Johnson)
Digital Doorway (tba)
Inveneo platform (Mark Summer)
WISPiab work status (George James)
Wireless Africa project (Chris Morris)
Freifunk, B.a.t.m.a.n. & Meraka Mesh Testbed (Elektra)
DIY Guide & Zambia LinkNet (Karel Matthee)
IP04 (it46, rowetel) (on behalf of the project: Sebastian Buettrich)

Afternoon

Business models

Introduction: Sebastian

Business models may be classified according to a number of different dimensions -

e.g. financial/economic layer, tech/network topology layer, applications layer, social layer, -

Based on the experience of the participants and projects, business models should be reviewed with the goal of reaching a downselection of models that should be implemented/supported in the first iteration of the WISPiab project.

Classical examples:

Voice services - The Village Telco
"Line sharing" - sharing internet access between organizations
Telecentre / Internet Cafe
Campus / School network

The goal is to go through all our relevant models, to classify them on all layers,

and to identify the technology implications (such that technology follows business models, and not vice versa), producing a clear results list.

Cooperations and Resources

There is significant overlap between projects on the technology layer. All projects are subscribing to free software models (GPL / CC, etc).

We are operating against a backdrop of

challenged (human) resource situation
brain drain / skills exodus
wanting to build local (i.e. african? ... southern african? .... south african?) capacity

Cooperation between projects seems appropriate and possible.

The goal is to conclude this meeting with a clear picture of modes of cooperation.

Advisory Group

We wish to form an advisory group / peer group, including partly the invitees of this meeting, but not limited to these.

Day 2 - Tuesday, June 3

Morning

Technical Requirements / Specifications - detail level

Examples of concrete detail issues:

Authentication - where and how
Billing in mesh networks
VoIP in mesh networks

The goal of this session is to fill the matrix of

technology requirements x project/business model

and then check this matrix against the various existing hardware/software platforms.

Hardware platforms aspects

A number of different hardware/software platforms are fulfilling subsets of our requirements.

The available platforms need to be discussed and evaluated, towards a decision on what to choose.

The platforms that our projects are currently working with are:

Linksys WRT54, with firmwares OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Freifunk, CoovaAP, and similar
Open-Mesh, Accton - with Open Mesh Firmware (new firmware anoounced for summer 2008, with: RO.B.IN, orangemesh, COOVA, etc)
Inveneo platform
Ubiquti NS, PS
Meraka Bokkie routers
pls add!

Hands-on work

Part of this session will be practical experiments with the platforms - if appropriate, in breakout sessions.

Afternoon

Productification / Dissemination / Rollout strategies

Strategies for the productification of software packages
- Sourceforge platform plans (Steve?)
- Ubuntu / UCK (Sebastian, Mark, Elektra)
Rollout capacity

Hands-on work

Part of this session will be practical experiments with the platforms - if appropriate, in breakout sessions.

Day 3 - Wednesday, June 4

Morning

Ndlovu Medical Center

Status and Agenda of network at Ndlovu Medical Center

How can the various projects benefit Ndlovu Medical Center?

Status, gaps and planning of implementations

WISPiab status and work plan
Dabba / Village Telco work sprint, June 16-20
- prepare and support that workshop

Hands-on work

Part of this session will be practical experiments with the platforms - if appropriate, in breakout sessions.

Afternoon

Conclusions & Next steps

Dabba Worksprint
WISPiab work plan
Digital Doorway work
Wireless Africa, June meeting

etc

Notes from the meeting - Day 1

People & Project introductions

Introduction and WISPiab Project (Sebastian Buettrich)
Peeble's Valley Mesh (David Johnson)
Dabba / Orange Farm / Village Telco (Rael Lissoos)
Inveneo platform (Mark Summer)
Freifunk (Elektra)
DIY Guide & Zambia LinkNet (Karel Matthee)
WISPiab work status (George James)
Two radio mesh router (Johann Hugo)
Wireless Africa project (Chris Morris)

Forming an Alliance?

to be edited

Notes from the meeting - Day 2

Requirements, Specifications, Wishlist

We chose the GUI wishlist by Dabba as an entry to discussing our current specifications set, identifying how we cover the single elements today, identifying dependencies, etc

What?	Which element	Existing	Alternate names/terms
Network Settings	core	FF, IHL, Coova (wifidog) + alternatives, Linksys & Netgear interfaces	Network Management, Setup,
ISP settings	core	Coova, phpMyPrepaid, OpenWRT (QoS script) (...)shaper	user/service profiles – provisioning (some of it -> QoS)
VoIP Settings Users, tarriffs	voice	AsteriskNow IP04 HW, Trixbox, A2billing, (Open)SER	-->user profiles, --> VoIP settings
Prepaid Card System (print cards) (ops), ->web, ->voice	web,voice	phpMyPrepaid, A2billing	“usage”
CRM	core	compiere
Accounting -->logs	core	phpMyPrepaid, a2billing	->(if bill) ->ERP
Logo/Company	core	(all components have some of it)	themes/skins/ customisation
Network Monitoring		Nagios, Open-Mesh, Open NMS, FF (some), MRTG/rrdtool	Network management
Content
Video Server
Cache\Proxy with stats		squid with awstats
Mail
Security encryption
httpd, with stats etc		apache, awstats
Wiki / image hosting
Telecentre management		UgaBytes telecentre management software?

Business Models

Discussion of business models that have informed the specifications, and a checkback whether we feel that the current specifications actually accomodate all these models.

The template on top suggests dimensions / criteria from which to look at the various models.

Business Model Template

Description:

Economics: Free or paid by ....
Billing models: Subscription / Prepaid (Time/Data based):
Applications:
Network / Topology:
Internet uplink:
User Devices / Locations:
Startup Strategy:
Legal & Regulatory

Telecentre / Internet Cafe / Hotspot

Description: "Classical" telecentre / cafe style

Economics: Free or paid by users / advertisers / cafe business
Billing models: typically Prepaid (Time based):
Applications: typically Browser / Mail / Office / Games
Network / Topology: wired LAN
Internet uplink: model works with and without uplink, but typically yes
User Devices / Locations: Users on business owned PC
Startup Strategy:
Legal & Regulatory: ok in most (?) countries

Telco

Description: Telco offering "fixed line" and mobile VoIP telephony

Economics: Part free (?) (local) / paid by user
Billing models: typically Prepaid (Time/Data based):
Applications: VoIP telephony, typically on dedicated hardware
Network / Topology: Centralized / Inframesh
Internet uplink: Yes, if terminating external calls / local loop without
User Devices / Locations: Users at home / office / mobile, Device VoIP handsets, ATA etc
Startup Strategy:
Legal & Regulatory: complex, country to country

(Edu)Content / Media

Intranet / Neighbour-Net

Line Sharing

ISP

Web Hosting / Design

Corporate / Managend Services

Guesthouse Net

Housing Complex

Surveillance

Freifunk style Mesh

Training / Consultancy

Notes from the meeting - Day 3

Ndlovu Medical Centre

Henry introduces:

Status of mesh: operational, but currently disconnected (concerns about lightning)
Use of uplink: Browsing (for community users), sync with data center (Johannesburg)
Status of uplink: promised by Telkom, but not delivered yet

How to get started with a community mesh?

Donated PCs - 25 pcs
- Give to local entrepreneur types
Computer school as entry point

Create a starter kit
- for existing PCs (there is some! mostly free windows)
- preconfigured
- low cost
- probably of the type: Linksys WRT, open-mesh/accton

Financing model

Some contribution from user: Prepaid - low cost

What is interesting for people?

music!!! open music server locally?
free books? educational material
free local calls
a free wikipedia / digital doorway

Income from other sources (not the users):

advertisements

To do / upcoming:

call for a brainstorm meeting within the community

June 9, meeting with provincial directory

June 24: excursion to Ndlovu? participants of Wireless Africa meeting, Meraka people, Tom, Elektra

Top pain points / whats in the way:

political level - get OKs from important players

Hardware reference platform

Overall Requirements

12 Volts (best: 11 ... 16)
low power
fanless

Backend server

USB 2x
ethernet 2x
VGA

Candidate for reference choice:

bigger solution: VIA, jetway 1.2 GHz, 2x HD, 1 GB RAM, USD 680 ... 820 e.g. mini-box-com
- power: approx 25W ?
smaller solution: VIA, AMD Geode 500 MHz
- power: 8 W
LEX light/neo, e.g. 1 GB C7 approx USD 600 http://www.lex.com.tw/
soon to come: Atom based low cost desktops (Mark Summer)

Software on backend

Decision: Ubuntu (non X)

Access node

ethernet 2x
PoE
outdoor casing
broadcom or atheros chipset
5 ... 18 Volts
Watchdog (option)
WISPCAR (option)
serial port

Candidates:

Linksys WRT54GL
- price: EUR 50, ZAR 600, USD 60
- power: 4 W
- comments:

Ubiqiti
- price: NS 2: USD 79
- price: PS 2: USD 110
- power: 5 W

Accton
- price: USD 40
- power: 2-3 W ?
- comments: overheat problems? needs fixed power 5 V? quality of radio? unstable across channels?

PCEngines board
- price: > USD 250
- power: approx > 8W, depending on radio cards
- comments:

Soekris

Gateworks

Wiligear

A word on the punishment for every watt

Elektra, conservative estimate:

To power a 5 Watt device reliably, install a 80 Watt solar panel.

This means: 16 Watt solar panel per 1 Watt installed.

At about USD 5 per solar panel watt (current rough guess for market price), we have:

USD 80 in solar panel per 1 Watt installed.

Even when demanding less margin from the solar power system (i.e. less solar panels per consumer), the fine for every Watt installed is heavy.

Next steps

Examine the Ubiquiti - Lead: Elektra
- flash OpenWRT
- Examine the SDK

Procurement - Lead: Kobus/Ajay
- ??? x Inveneo small server

Examine the Inveneo Hub Linux (IHL)

Software development
- Meraka - Priority: the set of Coova (alternative: WifiDog) / FreeRadius / phpMyPrepaid (alternative: ISPBill) / Nagios
- Inveneo - Priority: Server squid/cache, proxy, asterisk, Webmin/ISPConfig