AND IN A MORE GRASSROOTS VEIN... Steve Goldberg now has notes posted from the National Community Wireless Summit on his WiFi Wiki. Steve actually made it to Champaign-Urbana while various others (like me) putzed out, so he's now our expert... go look, it's interesting stuff.

One of the interesting themes developing in the "community bandwidth" world, from Champaign-Urbana to Reykjavik, is the idea of the community network as a local common carrier rather than an ISP. From Steve's notes on a site visit to Champaign-Urbana Wireless:

They are setting up node antenna kits around Urbana with 802.11a backhaul and 802.11b access point in a mesh network configuration. They are NOT setting up access to the internet, they are creating a network. If the "owner" of the node wishes to share his broadband access, then there is mesh connectivity to the internet...

"We look at a community network, not as getting internet to the masses, but as making the community its own internet." --Zach Miller, SW egr CUWiN