[imc-st.louis] Fwd: WasbiNet in the RFT Blog:

[Ben West]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ben West <westbywest at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:58 PM
Subject: WasbiNet in the RFT Blog:
To: BPW - Talk List Serve <BPW-Talk at googlegroups.com>,
cherokeeneighborhoods at yahoogroups.com


A WiFi Co-Op Called WasabiNet Blooms On Cherokee Street
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2009/05/wifi_coop_called_wasabinet_blooms_on_cherokee_street.php

In January 2007, Mayor Francis Slay announced via blog post that he
had hashed out a deal with AT&T to outfit the entire city of St. Louis
with low cost wireless Internet. But the agreement, worth an estimated
$30 million, fell apart once word spread that the city had failed to
seek bids from other companies -- and questions arose about how AT&T
would power its WiFi antennas.

Now, two and a half years later, a handful of citizens and business
owners in St. Louis' Cherokee Street neighborhood have set up their
own public WiFi network using grant money, ingenuity, and a
stretched-out DSL signal from none other than AT&T.

The service is called WasabiNet and it is billed as a publicly owned
and maintained "wireless Internet co-operative."

It's powered by a series of inexpensive DSL routers that beam a WiFi
signal around the neighborhood using nifty technology called a "mesh
node network." It currently boasts download speeds of up to three
megabytes per second.

It costs about $10 a month to join and it is set to jump2 in size from
six subscribers to about 30 in the coming weeks. Coverage spans from
Minnesota to California Avenues, but the network's creator, Ben West,
hopes it will eventually extend from Compton to Jefferson Avenues and
accommodate up to 300 people.

--
Ben West
westbywest at gmail.com