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| Building Wireless Community Networks, 2nd Edition | 
| Author: Rob Flickenger
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $34.99
Buy New: $19.94
You Save: $15.05 (43%)
Buy New/Used from $9.56
Avg. Customer Rating:  (15 reviews)
Sales Rank: 677975
Format: Illustrated
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.6
ISBN: 0596005024
Dewey Decimal Number: 004.67
UPC: 636920005025
EAN: 9780596005023
ASIN: 0596005024
Publication Date: June 25, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"Building Wireless Community Networks" is about getting people online using wireless network technology. The 802.11b standard (also known as WiFi) makes it possible to network towns, schools, neighborhoods, small business, and almost any kind of organization. All that's required is a willingness to cooperate and share resources. The first edition of this book helped thousands of people engage in community networking activities. At the time, it was impossible to predict how quickly and thoroughly WiFi would penetrate the marketplace. Today, with WiFi-enabled computers almost as common as Ethernet, it makes even more sense to take the next step and network your community using nothing but freely available radio spectrum. This book has showed many people how to make their network available, even from the park bench, how to extend high-speed Internet access into the many areas not served by DSL and cable providers, and how to build working communities and a shared though intangible network. All that's required to create an access point for high-speed Internet connection is a gateway or base station. Once that is set up, any computer with a wireless card can log onto the network and share its resources. Rob Flickenger built such a network in northern California, and continues to participate in network-building efforts. His nuts-and-bolts guide covers: Selecting the appropriate equipment Finding antenna sites, and building and installing antennas Protecting your network from inappropriate access New network monitoring tools and techniques (new) Regulations affecting wireless deployment (new) IP network administration, including DNS and IP Tunneling (new) Hisexpertise, as well as his sense of humor and enthusiasm for the topic, makes "Building Wireless Community Networks" a very useful and readable book for anyone interested in wireless connectivity.
Amazon.com Review
Certain cities--Singapore is one example--have begun to outfit gathering places like airport lounges and downtown coffee shops as "hot spots" that are served by wireless Internet antennas. It's possible for anyone with an IEEE 802.11b card in a laptop to sit down in one and have Internet access immediately. The author of Building Wireless Community Networks, Rob Flickenger, thinks this is a great idea. He's written this small, thin volume to explain to readers why wireless networking is a community asset, and to bring them up to speed on the technologies available for creating wireless hot spots. Community here means a collection of people, as in a town or neighborhood. Wireless networking protocols are complicated, but IEEE 802.11b and the products that have sprung up around it (like Apple's AirPort and similar offerings from Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems) are pretty easy to set up and integrate into a network. Flickenger's treatment deals with these admirably but places more emphasis on configuring operating systems (notably Linux) to work as wireless gateways for transient users. The really fun reading has to do with custom antennas, though. Flickenger explains--no kidding--how to convert a Pringles potato-chip can into an antenna for wireless networking and goes into detail on how to work around the challenges posed by topography and human-made obstacles. This is a smart book about one of the most exciting frontiers in computer networking. --David Wall Topics covered: Means of delivering wireless network access (mainly Internet access) to rooms, buildings, communities, and whole geographic regions of up to a few miles in diameter. Design and placement of access points, as well as configuration of network nodes, is covered in detail, as are the legal and political aspects of building a wireless network for general community use.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Lots of good info, but somewhat dated. September 16, 2007
Just finished reading 'Wireless Community Networks'. It's a worthwhile read and I took a lot of good info from it. Would have liked to have more info about 802.16. I was surprised to see a lot of 802.11a info but not a word about 802.11n which is now the latest greatest. Perhaps you'd be better off waiting for the 3rd edition.
Very Practical October 11, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the most practical technical books I read. It covers all aspects that should be considered for wireless community networks, not only in regards to wireless (like db loss and stuff) but also some networking aspects like NAT.
Good description of some of the largest wireless communitie in the US as well.
A 3rd edition would be handy March 8, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This field of wireless networking is burgeoning. The uptake has continued unabated since Flickenger published this book almost two years ago.
Readers would benefit from an upgrading of this book to a newer edition. For one thing, the latest hardware offerings from vendors could be discussed. But also the IEEE wireless standards have moved forward. While the book doesn't go into the details of these, a newer edition could explain what the implications of the changing standards are on you.
For one thing, WiMax is starting to emerge as an alternative to WiFi. It may not be fully defined yet, but it's close enough that planning might start on using it. Its proposed maximum range far exceeds that of WiFi. Though there is the tradeoff of ultimately fewer users who can share this bandwidth over a given region.
 Not Intended for Practical Implementation January 23, 2005
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
I have a T1 line to my home in the country and wanted to provide my neighbors within a mile or so with a share of my bandwidth. What I lacked was a knowledge of what components to buy, what the practical differences are between components, ways to throttle bandwidth to individual neighbors, how to prevent bandwidth theft by neighbors who are not sharing in the cost of the T1 line, which components are "safe buys," what is involved in installation, what other skills are required, and where I can buy the needed components.
The title of this book started with "Building," so I hoped that it would be a practical book that focused on actually building a wireless network. Unfortunately, I was disappointed because the "building" is at an academic level, not a practical, commercial one. The requirements I have above are treated poorly, if at all. So, while this book may be great for people looking for a starter in becoming engineers or for professors looking for an academic textbook, it is less satisfactory for consumers looking to build a community network. Some specifics by book chapter:
1. Wireless Community Networks: history, some problems for ISPs, and what happens if the shift goes from the ISP to the individual network member. Nothing practical here.
2. Defining Project Scope: It doesn't. Instead, it talks about protocols such as 802.11, 802.11a, .... The "Hardware Requirements" section doesn't take you from your needs to what you'll require. It simply says that you will require hardware based on your needs and says you'll need to survey your site.
3. Network Layout: Is a bottom-up chapter with buzz words: Layer n, BSS, IBSS, DHCP, DNS, NAT, WEP, more on protocols, and security. This chapter fails to take one from problems to solutions. But, now you know the terms when you talk about actually building a WiFi network.
4. Using Access Points: Defines a lot of them, not how they solve your problems.
5. Host-Based Networking: The preface says this chapter provides a step-by-step guide to building your own access points using Linux and some hardware. But, the chapter itself just defines some terms and has a few scripts. It's not a step-by-step guide from my perspective, and it doesn't define the problem that is being solved nor who would want this.
The chapters that follow follow the pattern of bottom-up thinking: defining terms and disconnected ideas. This book would have been much better if it lived up to its title and had chapters that dealt with different end-user needs (different kinds of networks), and how each of these problems would be solved, providing answers to the requirements I listed above in my first paragraph.
I give this book not one star, but two because it does provide some terminology that serves as a starting point with wireless vendors for the discussion of actually building a wireless community network.
 Good practical book on WLAN August 19, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I found this book to be very practical and full of useful links. I read it cover to cover in two days. The book will have a greater value for people with no experience in the WLAN area. However I think readers at all levels will enjoy reading it.
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