all- i joined this mailing list a couple of weeks ago and i just recently finished catching up on the mailing list archives. from some of the discussions that took place a couple of months ago there was some interest in creating a real community wireless network but nothing (or so it would seem from the archives) was really done about it. i've had several opportunities to use the seattle wireless networks and several in the bay area as well as the guerrilla network in the boston area and i'm quite disappointed that there isn't anything equivalent in the twin cities area. since building really big service provider networks is what i do for a living. i figured if i'm disappointed in this i should really do something about it. is there a populace amongst the list that would be interested in meeting and coordinating the deployment (albeit i'm sure quite limited at this time?) of such a network? i'm in the process of setting up a public access point in my neighborhood (NE minneapolis) once my omnis show up. i've been hacking on the NoCatAuth stuff (http://www.nocat.net) to talk to real routers (cisco) for the traffic shaping and such. since this seems to be the most promising mode of community authentication i would be quite willing to host an authetication server for local authentication and integration with other WCNs. any takers? any interest in setting up a face to face meeting for interested parties? there are a plethora of network design and administration issues which would need to be addressed in deploying this on any scale. i understand that the dunn bros. in st. paul has wireless access and that it will be forthcoming at a few other locations. if there is considerable interest in a whiteboard session i can likely host a meeting a class/meeting room at work with a whiteboard. (sorry - no public wireless access). -- steve ulrich sulrich at botwerks.org PGP: 8D0B 0EE9 E700 A6CF ABA7 AE5F 4FD4 07C9 133B FAFC