Stellenbosch Wireless User Group

I had a meeting with the Municipality and the University about their project "Stellenbosch Community Network" today. Their ideas are currently somewhat crude - they have not yet decided on the business model, or how the network is to be operated, expanded and maintained. At this stage it is still a pilot project and no official policies or regulations have been put in place. They do, however, want to establish an open public network with the same vision that we have - to build a useful network to benefit the whole Stellenbosch community.

It is because of this shared vision that we decided that working together will be in the best interest of everyone. Working together also has the following benefits for the parties concerned:

• SCN's PTN and VANS licenses provide the WUG the means to build and use a network that is legal, thus protecting the interest of the network and its users.

• The WUG provides SCN with the necessary expertise, initiative and creativity to transform the network into more than mere infrastructure. It also acts as a public forum and a hub for sharing ideas and knowledge. Alternatively, the WUG has the capacity to maintain and monitor such a network ensuring a better end-user experience.
• The University expands access to its many private students and provides SCN with services like their ftp server.
• Through the expansion of SCN, by which ever party, more users are able to join making the network more useful and more central to the community.

How exactly cooperation will take place is yet to be discussed. But when each of us try to create their own network it defeats the whole purpose of an open public local access network. We agreed that a central body will have to be formed to control and regulate the use of the network and work with both the public and the private sector to build relations. I have proposed the forming of a non-profit organization consisting of people from the Municipality, University, StbWUG, WISP's and the public.

More detail on the proposed business model of this organization and why it was chosen can be found here: StbWUG - Description and Analysis of Candidate Business Models for Building, Maintaining and Expanding a City-wide Wireless Network..

Current status of the project: the university allready has 12 AP's broadcasting the SSID "SCN". The municipality said it would like to see an AP on Papegaaiberg before the end of this year. We have several users scattered throughout town (see map) who are able and willing to spread coverage in their areas. It will take some time to finalize the formalities and decide on the roles of everyone, but all of us are eager to work together to create a bigger more useful network, faster.