Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Martin Peck, Janus Wireless Project

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 19:56:41 -0400

Martin Peck, Janus Wireless Project

By Jason Ankeny

Wireless Review, Apr 1, 2003

Martin Peck brings an altogether new meaning to the concept of Internet
traffic. In late February, he and fellow members of the Janus Wireless
Project — the Portland, Ore.-based Wi-Fi enthusiast group Peck
co-founded in March 2002 — masterminded the Wi-Fi Caravan. On a
road trip from Portland to San Francisco's CodeCon '03 event, the Wi-Fi
Caravan proved that it was possible to establish and maintain an
802.11 wireless network among a convoy of vehicles traveling down the
highway.

“We thought it would be fun if we set up a network between vehicles to
use [Internet Relay Chat], share music and watch videos,” said Peck,
who by day is a quality assurance engineer for service provider Metro
One Telecommunications. So last November, he and his Janus
colleagues began preparing for the 14-hour drive, creating and
tweaking the necessary software; chip developer VIA Technologies
donated additional hardware.

But there were bumps in the road: Although Peck's original plan called
for a procession of four or five cars that would create a network link
extending several miles, only two cars were able to make the journey,
with a third joining much later on. There were also technical glitches.
“Everything that could go wrong did,” Peck said. “We hit a lot of the
snags you could possibly run into, from power demands to needing
spare equipment.”

The Wi-Fi Caravan wasn't merely a stunt, however. Its success proved a
theory that's been floating about the wireless community for some time:
By installing 802.11 equipment in enough motor vehicles, it's possible
to create a roaming wireless network that would effectively blanket the
nation — each car would serve as a repeater node, whether it was
speeding through traffic or parked in its owner's garage. “That's the
beauty of connectivity,” Peck said. “It's a whole new community network
that everyone implicitly participates in.”

With many of the kinks now ironed out, Peck is planning another Wi-Fi
Caravan for later this year. “For everything that went wrong, the
message is still intact: Commodity wireless networking really does
have the capabilities to do this,” he said. “The possibilities are wide
open.”

http://wirelessreview.com/ar/wireless_martin_peckjanus_wireless/index.htm

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