Wireless Networking

I run a publicly accessible 802.11b access point. There are a couple of rules:

The service is free to individuals for non-commercial use.
It is provided at will on a personal hobby basis.

There is no guarantee of privacy.

There is no guarantee of availability or quality of service.
Service may be changed or terminated at any time for any reason.

Nothing illegal or legally actionable in any jurisdiction
accessible via the service is allowed. If in doubt, don't do it.

Use of this service is at your own risk.

Furthermore:

Don't abuse the service.
Don't annoy me or anyone else accessible through the service.
Anyone found engaging in any abuse of any kind
will be banned from using the service. There is no appeal.

I'm using a Linksys BEFW11S4. This is an inexpensive but capable wireless access point with integrated 4-port 10/100 switch. For consumer-grade equipment it's pretty good and I'm happy with it for the price. Make sure you check the version of the firmware and apply a recent flash update if it is earlier than 1.39. I had problems with the early revisions.
If I were to buy again, I probably would get the Netgear MR314 which is more solidly built and seems to be a more professionally-oriented product. Neither of them has a serial console, but the Netgear does permit saving the settings to a file. Netgear (the consumer division of Bay Networks, now Nortel) makes good stuff.

I'm considering ditching it. I run the Linksys in gateway mode with all its features disabled, don't use the switch except for management and it all sits outside an OpenBSD firewall dedicated just to the Wireless network. This should make management easier (one less box), but might affect coverage within the apartment (which is why I started).

Coverage indoors is just fair but it has a lot to do with where I live. The building is brick and interior walls are mostly plaster on metal lathe. Some parts of the apartment (more than two intervening walls) have signal but not enough to be usable. Your mileage may vary.

A walking tour of the neighborhood demonstrated that given line-of-sight I can get a usable signal more than four blocks away with the existing antenna. The answer will probably be an aftermarket antenna, probably an omni from SuperPass. I also noted during that walk that several other people in the neighborhood also have wireless access points. I didn't check if they were public but did notice that two of them, based upon their MAC address, were also Linksys models.

[NYC Wireless Logo]

I never can seem to make it to meetings, but I affiliate myself with the NYC Wireless group.

My ISP is Speakeasy.