The freethenet.ca crew of tech-revolutionaries met up last night to discuss "what's up? what's next how's it going?" I popped in for a bit (in between watching the Canucks lose to the Red Wings - argh!) to grasp the tenor of the non-organization in the wake of this heady couple of months.

First i gotta say ... to see a bunch of people voluntarily meeting up to talk about something that has no opportunity to make any of them money yet takes up substantial time and mental resource, is remarkable.

I know they/we aren't curing cancer and feeding orphan children in foreign lands but there is something important going on here from a social science point of view as well as technology-wise.

Enough with my editorializing, here's the topics - the big 'un being that the while the actual physical units may be adequate, the vendor and their policies don't seem to jive with the quest to spread a wireless mesh around neighborhoods.

With this in mind, hardware-smacker nitobi Joe showed how the Meraki can be modified to do his bidding - in this case, present a designated start screen as per location. Check out his hardware/firmware hi-jinks at the Dog on Rails project.

I suppose the reason for this custom start page is to alleviate the concern which some business locations have about receiving some manner of advertising opportunity from sharing their bandwidth. With a designated start page, a cafe in Coquitlam may offer a unique welcome page - perhaps featuring lunch specials and a map to local attractions, parks and possibly other businesses - which appears rather than the generic page currently loaded by the Meraki units.

Erstwhile ringleader of the merry band Boris Mann speaks about the portal pages saying, "This is actually a secondary goal of the group: freedom to access information, especially local community information."

While at first blush, this pushed content seems to detract from the altruistic motivation behind the transparent sharing of bandwidth, however, in the stark light of business realism and the handy glow of consumer convenience, such info proves useful for both the wi-fi supplier and the wi-fi user. Heck, why not push the whole menu with user reviews upon connecting plus a walking map of neighborhoods sites for afterwards?

Other ways of promoting the kind locations who host connections could be as simple as listing on the freethenet page and allowing locations to create a page to promote themselves to the user community (many of whom surely have little idea how this all works). Once a promotional strategy is tested, perhaps we'll see a wider variety of organizations step up - perhaps social housing units and/or suburban fast food chains will move the focus beyond the tech-heavy downtown offices and homes currently carrying the load.

Speaking of who's carrying the load, .. there are currently about 30 nodes mostly clustered around downtown, Gastown, Railtown but a few in Kits, Surrey and Tsawassen. 1000 unique users have hopped on since launch and 50 more units are available from the Bryght office and/or visit at the Media Democracy Day at SFU Harbour Centre tomorrow (Friday Oct. 25).

So about the devices, ... Meraki changed policies and aren't playing in a friendly and open style and this might mean the group seeks a way to get devices made custom - somehow, somewhere.

Raincity's Alex Rollin pitches in here to set the landscape,

"The big thing is that the group may get into manufacturing their own hardware. The current supplier has placed limitations on the availability of the device and has proven themselves to be a poor and unavailable partner at best. Meraki has come up with a solution that doesn't work for us in the long term, and the group is considering alternatives like producing their own equipment."

Beyond the technical questions of the devices, there are lingering questions and concerns about how people will use the connections and who is responsible when/if things go awry. What if black-hats sniff packets for passwords? What if someone "hacks" into my system? What if people are accessing "immoral" content? How about "illegal" content? These are questions which seem naive to some but are significant concerns for beleaguered and conscientious business owners.

Fortunately, in the real world, abuse is more hype than reality. The big problem is wresting a modicum of control from the phone quasi-monopolies which limit innovation and data freedom. And, in a distant second place, the lack of fundamental understanding by consumers (both phone/cable customers and freethenet users) about how this works and what it will take to keep it working.

Alex eloquently agrees,

'The largest barrier to this project is not criticism or the threat of individuals attempting to control the network, but ensuring that enough people understand and connect with the community that is supporting and driving the initiative itself.

This community is open, intelligent, and welcomes new energy in finding solutions to problems that have been plaguing municipal and community infrastructure projects for 100 years. We aren't reinventing the wheel except where necessary, and we are finding solutions that will bring success to the project.

There were a lot of new faces at this month's meeting, and our hope is that next month community business owners will begin attending to see some of the concerns the group has and how the group works through issues. All are welcome."

So the ambition exists, the technology is scraped together one way or another, and sure enough, freethenet is growing outside the influence of government and conglomerates.

The question is now: Are you onboard? Good, then help me figure a way to get freethenet on the Seabus.