First inspired by Mark Pesce’s presentation at Web Directions South 2007 titled “Mob Rules” just over a month ago and more recently spurred into action by Lachlan Hardy with his post “Meraki Madness” I am now the proud owner of 2 mesh network node and data packet repeater devices manufactured by and also referred to in the singular as Meraki.

So … is it really possible to set-up a mesh network across Canberra and get everyone to share their private Internet connections they currently pay good money for in order to allow anyone anywhere in Canberra to access the Internet for free over wifi?

Well - it’s been implemented quite successfully in San Fransisco so I don’t see any reason why it can’t be done. Sure, the approach in SF was a little different and my plan for implementing a mesh network in Canberra is a little less aggressive and not corporate or council backed but our city is smaller.

I know there is at least one other Canberran coming on board - and I hope to present something about this at the next Canberra Web Standards Group meeting. It’ll start small - from my own house. Opening my own ADSL connection to my neighbours. Telling them about it, letting them use it, then getting them to buy their own Meraki units and opening their Internet connections - and working out from there to the whole suburb, then all of Gungahlin, down to the city.

Is your data recorded or tracked? No. The only thing that Meraki captures is the name of your computer when you connect to the network and the amount of data you use (so if there are people abusing the privilege of free internet then they can be blocked from the network).

Free Internet? How can you say no!

If you live in Canberra and you want to get on-board or keep up-to-date with the project then join the Free Canberra Wireless Facebook group.

Also see Mark Pesce’s Web Directions South 2007 presentation “Mob Rules” - a segment of his presentation was about Meraki, how they work and the first large-scale implementation of a Meraki-based mesh network in San Francisco.

Public Network page for my Meraki mesh network purecaffeine.