Bristol Wireless News

Lloyd Cohen, Bristol Wireless’ network engineer, reports that after much testing and reconfiguration following the initial installation works, our new 5.8 GHz backbone network now appears to be stable. While there are still a few tweaks to be done at each PoP (point of presence) to finalise the installs, plus the small job of bringing up a fifth node in Easton, the current network can now be regarded as pre-production in its present state.

The Bristol Wireless 5.8 GHz backbone currently interconnects Bristol University’s Merchant Venturers building housing our new connection to BMEX (Broadband Media Exchange), Knowle West Web (now part of the Bristol Wireless network) in Knowle and our existing PoPs in Kingsdown (Armada House), Easton (Twinnel House and Easton Community Centre) and Windmill Hill (Holroyd House). Each of these locations distributes access at 2.4 GHz, meaning that Bristol Wireless now has an infrastructure to which we can connect sites over a large part of the city.

Lloyd further states that Bristol Wireless is now ready to begin installing Level-2 PoPs connected to this network to distribute further wireless connectivity to the public for free and to local businesses for a competitive price.

In addition, our current 2.4 GHz systems connected to the network are to be reviewed with an eye to upgrading the present equipment for better performance.

More Bristol Wireless network news is promised soon, so any updates will be posted here.

Debian Linux (as used by Bristol Wireless – another satisfied customer!) is proud of its non-commercial credentials. But PC manufacturer Hewlett-Packard will give it a big corporate hug Monday with the announcement of a plan to provide support for the open-source operating system.

“We’ve had a number of customers continuing to ask us to have broader support for Debian,” and HP decided to oblige, said Jeffrey Wade, worldwide marketing manager at HP’s Open Source and Linux Organization. Nevertheless, it was stated that Red Hat and Novell will remain HP’s main overall Linux partners.

HP announced the news in conjunction with the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco.

The company has a long history of co-operation with Debian. It formerly employed one Debian leader, Bruce Perens, and another former leader and current contributor, Bdale Garbee, is chief technologist of HP’s Open Source and Linux Organization.

Read the full article .

More than three-quarters of all UK colleges and universities consider open source options during IT procurement exercises, says a newly published report.

The survey, undertaken OSS Watch service, the open source software advisory service for universities, also found that use of Moodle, the open source course management system or virtual learning environment (VLE), has grown to 56% in under three years. With the Open University’s decision to adopt Moodle as its future VLE, open source penetration has made substantial progress in this high-profile sector.

However, while 77% of colleges and universities report that they regularly explore open source options in procurement exercises, only 25% of institutions report mention of “open source” in their institutional policies, suggesting an important discrepancy between policy and practice in this area.

The report also suggests that institutional engagement with open source software development remains a challenge too. Of those institutions deploying open source software, only 14% report knowing whether or not they submit patches and contribute to the ongoing development of open source software.

The report’s other findings include:

• 68% now provide Mozilla Firefox on their desktop PCs;
• there is no clear leader amongst Content Management Systems (CMS) with more than 29 different solutions being used by respondents;
• cost continues to the principal driver in reasons for considering OSS.

The report was undertaken to assess the levels of use of open source software in further and higher education and its place in policy and decision-making. With the Government placing greater emphasis on open source software in public sector IT provision, OSS Watch is building on this profile to advise colleges and universities on the importance of including consideration of open source software in their IT strategies.

Randy Metcalfe, Manager of OSS Watch, said, “This survey shows that although open source use is on the rise, institutional engagement with the open source development community remains patchy. OSS Watch will redouble its efforts over the next two years in order to help colleges and universities work through the challenges of engagement, from contribution of code to open source business models.”

A copy of the report and executive summary is available from the OSS Watch website.

Green Wifi, a non-profit organisation aiming to bring internet access to schools in developing countries via cheap, solar-powered wi-fi networks, plans to start its first full-scale pilot project in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh at the end of the summer, reports News.com. Green Wifi will be implementing the project for a Canadian aid organisation that has requested wi-fi in 3 schools (one of which has a cable connection) in this north Indian state whose the electricity supply is unreliable.

The concept behind Green Wifi’s technology is installing a battery-powered router — charged by a solar panel — in each node in its wi-fi network. The nodes are mounted on rooftops and the network’s wi-fi signals are transferred over a grid using the 802.11b/g wireless network standard.

Green Wifi has received seed money for the project from Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative (OLPC), which aims to construct a $100 laptop running free/open source software to be distributed to children in developing countries. OLPC reportedly showed immediate interest in the wi-fi initiative.

Read the original News.com article or an Indian perspective on the GigOM broadband weblog.

The people of Norwich should by now be enjoying the pleasures of free wi-fi today thanks to a project backed by Norfolk County Council and the East of England Development Agency.

The project, costing £1.1 mn., covers 30 square kilometres embracing most of Norwich city centre, outlying business parks, the hospital and the University of East Anglia.

It is anticipated that the service will be extended to a further 20 rural areas in Norfolk later this year.

For full details, read the original article in full in The Register.

On Friday 4th August BBC Bristol’s Points West filmed a small news item on Bristol’s Digital Challenge bid. It should be broadcast one evening this week (commencing 7th August) and transmission dates from Tuesday 8th to Thursday 10th have been mentioned.

The Points West crew filmed in 2 locations: firstly with a group of young people up at the Knowle West Media Centre, followed by a trip to Princess Royal Gardens in Redfield, where warden Ronnie Corbett was interviewed and residents interviewed and filmed using the LTSP suite installed by Bristol Wireless.

Update: the story also appeared on BBC Radio Bristol’s drivetime show on 9th August.