We’ve built the network: now where do we get the content?

Wireless Community Weekend 2010 at Berlin is a conference of different wireless networks around Europe. One of the sessions we held was on what kind of services people are running on their networks and what should be develop (as a community) next to enrich our infrastructure.

We’ve built the network: what now?

Services

• radio and video streaming http://rund.freifunk.net or http://www.livestream.com/dubnighttv/
• Voice over IP http://wiki.ninux.org/Elenco_Telefonico_rete_VoIP_di_ninux.org
• Public web Cams (over the roofs, bird nest’s – very popular in Berlin)

Discovery

Splash screen:

• They don’t really work in most experience. People don’t read them or respond to them.
• Intercepts connections and makes a bad experience
• Problems when being on dual stack
• If you have it: don’t mention money as people will go away (even if just for donations).  Explain what will happen after they press the login button.
• Use SSID as name that you want to announce (use WWW so people know it’s a website)

mDNS:

• Service discovery, networks
• Music sharing services (iTunes like sharing (DAAP))
• Serverless chat
• Good resource: http://wiki.ninux.org/ZeroconfServices

Kiberpipa.net is running:

• Video streaming from Cyberpipe (lectures – http://video.kiberpipa.org)
• VPN for end users
• Local irc server with SSL suport (irc.sioff.net)
• VPS to run and learn about Linux (all the servers are accessible inside network + ipv6 only connectivity from the outside world)
• Multiple-storages (NAS) for sharing stuff/run your own FTP server
• Peering connectivity to other Freifunk networks/hackerspaces

Other services that people are running

• Used books
• Weather report
• Blog server
• Radio streaming
• DNS servers that do all the fancy remapping (service to all the users)

Wishlist:

• WE NEED working SPLASH SCREENS 🙂
• nodes running their own webserver
• automatic name registration system (web site)
• alternative domain names redirection (custom zones)
• internet caching services (uncensored)
• decentralized community radio station / shared radio schedule (gsoc project this year): http://radiomate.org and http://fusoradio.net
• game servers (freeciv works!)
• mesh-partys (like lan party)
• local search engines
• good service discovery service. What is the most common way to announce new service around the whole network: mDNS?

Want to share your experience in running services on your wireless networks? Share it in the comments.