[Battlemesh] Fwd: A discussion item for Berlin: an Open Hardware WiFi platform

[Nicolás Echániz]

I'm forwarding Steve's e-mail because I guess many of you will be
attending the summit in october.

cheers,
Nico


-------- Mensaje original --------
Asunto: 	A discussion item for Berlin: an Open Hardware WiFi platform
Fecha: 	Sun, 1 Sep 2013 11:39:11 -0300
De: 	Steve Song <steve at villagetelco.org>


Hi all,

I am looking forward to seeing you all in Berlin in October.

As a primer for the summit, there is something that Nico and Guido from
Altermundi and I have been talking about that we'd like to raise as an
informal discussion item at the summit.  We'd like to seek out interest
from other groups in participating in a project to establish an Open
Hardware WiFi platform.

The community wireless movement has grown thanks the ability of Open
Source pioneers to adapt and evolve the OpenWRT operating system which
provides a platform for networks to implement the protocols and services
that they like.  The ability to customise commodity wireless routers is
at the foundation of the community wireless movement.   While OpenWRT
has grown steadily in robustness and sophistication, another revolution
has been taking place, the Open Hardware movement. Open Hardware has
brought groundbreaking innovations like the Arduino and the Raspberry
Pi.  It has galvanised the maker movement and opened the door to
hardware creativity.

Perhaps the time has come for an Open Hardware wireless platform that
can be a platform for WiFi hardware innovation and something that all
community wireless networks can benefit from.

The Atheros AR9344 platform is a affordable yet powerful dual radio
platform featuring:

  * IEEE 802.11n 2x2 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz System on-a-Chip (SoC)
  * 74Kc MIPS processor operating at up to 560 MHz
  * 10/100 Ethernet Switch with five IEEE 802.3 Ethernet LAN ports
  * USB 2.0 controller with built-in MAC/ PHY supports Host or Device mode
  * I2S/SPDIF-out audio interface
  * SLIC for VOIP/PCM
  * One low-speed UART (115 Kbps), one highspeed UART (3 Mbps), and
    multiple GPIO pins for general purpose I/O

It could be the foundation of an Open Hardware WiFi device designed for
community wireless network deployment.

In Berlin, Village Telco and Altermundi would like to invite you discuss
the merits of building an Open Hardware WiFi platform that will be the
commodity WiFi device we always wanted.

Thoughts welcome :)