We need to start getting some more access points up and running, so I'm purposing we start approaching building owners/the council etc for permission to put access points in good locations, rather than just on people's homes as they can sometimes be short lived (ie in my case, where our land lord is kicking us out =/ )
What I'd like people to do is to list any good locations in this thread, and I'll gather some people who are keen to help and we'll approach the owners of the property.
Please do not try to approach people by yourself unless you've talked to us, we'd like to keep things very professional, as to not give ourselves a bad name.
Well, I have some hardware for the albany area, however I dont feel comfortable asking people if I can use a power source and put an antenna on their roof. So if anyone would like to do that part, I can setup some more AP's to get more coverage.
[list] On top of the watertank at the top of sunset road. Offers a view over the entire Unsworth Heights, and some of the albany industrial and over quite a bit of glenfield.
[*] The guy with all the ariels and crap on his roof at the bush road intersection. If we had an AP there, it would allow Icepick (who is very keen) to get a lot of people to connect to him.[list]
Thats all I can think of at the moment, but there will be more coming
maybe ask the people at various shopping malls around auckland...
eg: (for me in south auckland anyway)....
Manukau City
Southmall (Manurewa)
Botney Downs
because:
A) will allow people to use their laptops in carparks or sumthing while they waiting for their partner to do the shopping usually lotsa houses within mall areas (or can see the malls)
spencer on byron in takapuna (i think you guys might have mentioned this before) but its a nice tall buildling :P can see it from lots of places on the shore. or the apartments on mokoia road in birkenhead, i dont think they have anything else on their roof (e.g telecom) and that building seems to stick out on a ridge.
Unfortanantly the Spencer is not possible. :cry:
After alot of what looked very hopefull it all fell flat cause they are in dispute with the contractors that built the thing about who owns the bloody roof. What every happened to getting a building built for ya and owning the thing as well :roll:
There are about four main players in the "roof top" business and I have approced all of them and are currently talking to two who may be able to help but the thing is that roof top space is worth just about the same as office space in the same building so we can get space definatly on quite a few buildings if we want to pay but we are trying to rangle it for free so if that approce don't work we may have revisit the idea of paying.
The telecom building it takapuna is a possiblity as we could not use it while telecom was in there but they move out this month and i am in contact with the people involved with that building.
The other thing is with putting up masts, I have found out that if you need planing consent to erect them we have alot better chance than anyone else as councils have to give community based projects like ours alot more leneance than joe bloggs. maybe it would be worth hitting the councils up and ask to use the tops of the two water tanks on the shore(that i know of) that are at Sunset Rd and in Northcote and i have already confirmed that they have power to the top of them.
It was the relay and AP for compass(RadioNet) for between albany and town
I beleve he just has a net connection now
all the AP's that compass had on private homes are being taken out because of problems with houses being sold and things like that. Also people change there mind and don't want them there anymore
The other thing is with putting up masts, I have found out that if you need planing consent to erect them we have alot better chance than anyone else as councils have to give community based projects like ours alot more leneance than joe bloggs. maybe it would be worth hitting the councils up and ask to use the tops of the two water tanks on the shore(that i know of) that are at Sunset Rd and in Northcote and i have already confirmed that they have power to the top of them.
Yeah, the water tank on the corner of East Coast Bays Road and Kowhai Road would be good
There are alot more of water tanks around that would be perfect also!
Telstraclear, if they're nice
North Shore Hospital
also the "Cricle" Apartments in milford, kitchener road. looks like a kodak film, i dont think they have anything on their roof?
I wonder if that was the response or the letter template?
Actually i think we need to find someone what can write really well and put together a standard set of documents and letters that we can all use.
Things like Invitations to join, requests for assistance, sponsorship, and a few other things..
Actually i think we need to find someone what can write really well and put together a standard set of documents and letters that we can all use.
Things like Invitations to join, requests for assistance, sponsorship, and a few other things..
Really happy to help out here - I am happy to write stuff. In terms of Building stuff, anyone thought of talking to JDA? they are a major player in this area...
The Skytower is completely out of the question.
The 2.4 range from there is taken by Walker(woosh) wireless and they have a special agreement with skycity that no other 2.4 gear is allowed up there at all. Also the pricing of it is very high as you would expect, $3000 per antenna (normally you would put 4 90deg antenna) plus $3000 for the cabinet so a total of around $15000 per year.
The Colmar Brunton building in Takapuna is a possibility but it is only 5 story’s so not very high and it costs about $5000 per year for one omni and a box.(Hersmere Rd)
The north shore hospital is a very slim possibility and if someone knows someone there we will have a lot better chance.
Apparently Telecom had some gear up on top of it and they had it turned up so bloody high it was above OSH safety levels inside one of the wards and it was also effecting some of the equipment in the ward as well so they are very gun shy now about any wireless kind of gear.
Watercare are not keen at all to use the water tanks but i know another person there that is going to push our case for us
I have also found out that we can get LOS maps for POP sites that we are looking at. These would cost around the $300 mark retail but they said they would do us a deal cause we are community based.(these are like the one that Ihug had on there web site for there sat service coverage area)
I can also do them from home but they will take a lot longer as it will be a manual job so i will only be doing them for up and running POP's if people want them. nether take buildings into account.
It would be good if there were SOME big and beefy access points scatered around the auckland area, using high speed equipment running at around 100mb/s. these "big'n beefy" access points on good high ground. Then coming off these, multiple 'small' access points (around 10-54mb/s, hopefully run at peoples houses) which would then offer maximum coverage to everyone. i hope u know what i mean .
I think the new apartment block (nice'n high) in highbury (which is in birkenhead) would be a good place for an access point.
Glenfield mall would also be good, as can't people in devenport/taka see it?
the 2nd to highest tower in the auckland CBD (i dunno what its called)
the company i work for services all the telstra/clear mobile phone antennas in the upper north island. Its mostly the ups part of each tower, but i could get my boss to ask about putting up some small antennas for "small" community use
i dont think ur going to be able to find many places to host ur access points for free.
esp considering companys like woosh pay up to $800 a month to have an access point on some ones roof
love the pessimism. :roll:
*experience talking*
Places tend to be cautious for the following reasons:
corporates are either skeptical, scared or see no business advantage for them.
joe.publics tend to think of it more in terms of aesthetics, power consumption and omgmyhealthicouldgetcancer!
The trick is to come out firing, anyone who has done any business communications or accounting should know how to do a proper proposal. I may be able to dig up a template...
With the corporates the secret is to form a relationship with the company involved, let them know that there are advantages in it for them (being given free advertising, and the image of caring for/being involved in the community, let alone giving a free platform for their employees to do things across such as access work via VPN etc)
And when I say "community" I dont mean "exclusive group of geeks." I mean "community" as in "community" eg the populous that resides in a metropolitan area; everyone.
With the joe.publics, just give them some free internet, that'll shut them up. People like free stuff, tends to squash the NIMBY attitude
You've got to know how to work people - keep the focus on them, not you, but most importantly, you've got to mean what you say. If you're bullshitting as a means to an end, dont bother. They'll figure it out sooner or later and your gear will go byebye. If they're giving you roofspace and power, be f-cking grateful and keep up your end of the deal.
Just had another round of meetings with businesses, and the most common question asked was "could we use your network as a secondary/tertiary backup in case our primary internet connection goes down? (How) Could you guarantee us a set amount of bandwidth?"
Something else that you guys might like to think about...
i'm proposing an internal-format network, possibly with internet forwarding. and with internal IPs being fixed for a low price-per-month. and free internal hosting using the currently-bogus '.efw' domain. the internet link will be only a possibilitybecause i intend this network to be free, entirely other than ip-fixing.
But if internet access is to be provided, it will either be perilously slow due to its shared nature, or it will cost.
I cannot get the network up until i get a decent w/g antenna, and im broke atm (no income + $0)
Public building/location APs 
usually lotsa houses within mall areas (or can see the malls)
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