A group of students at The Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology (BFIT) in Boston’s South End have built a 20 antenna mesh that is providing wireless broadband service to tenants of a local apartment complex.
The mesh is the result of a partnership between BFIT and the Castle Square Tenants Organization. Castle Square is a low-to-moderate income housing complex. The mesh is providing free wireless service to 165 residents.
Funded by grants and donations from the Boston Foundation and others, the network uses a WiFi technology called Roofnet from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. RoofNet is Linux-based and uses personal computers equipped with antennas as its nodes.
The program also features an on-site tech center that is authorized by Microsoft to refurbish donated computers and distribut them to residents in the complex. Forty computers are expected to be distributed in the coming months.
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