International Summit for Community Wireless Networks 2008

May 28 - 30, 2008

IS4CWN is a global convergence of experts and activists in the field of Community Wireless Networks. (more...)

The New America Foundation, CUWiN Foundation, the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, and the Acorn Active Media Foundation will be hosting the annual International Summit for Community Wireless Networks in Washington, DC on May 28-30, 2008. More information will be forthcoming at wirelesssummit.org in coming weeks. Hosted by the world's largest general scientific society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), this year's summit will continue its tradition of featuring wireless leaders, innovators, activists, and community networking visionaries from around the globe. "With large-scale network implementations demonstrating the viability of open source wireless technologies, and corporate franchise business model faltering, the movement is at a critical juncture in its development" states Sascha Meinrath, Summit Director. "This year's International Summit for Community Wireless Networks will explore issues of global integration and local control over these vital communications media." (less...)

Summit Registration

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Featured sessions

Current Trends in Community Wireless

There are many different types of CWNs out there, and there's a constant stream of new developments. Come by and hear about CWN trends in North America and Europe and learn about new updates on policy and community organizing, emerging business models and new technology that's being deployed in addition to new network architectures (including mesh and IPv6). This will be an open discussion panel where audience members are encouraged to give updates about what their current projects.

Policy Debates Impacting Community Wireless Networks

This panel of experts in telecommunications policy will focus on the debates around municipal and community wireless networks and spectrum policy in the United States. Topics to be covered include: municipal broadband authority; spectrum auctions and opening additional unlicensed spectrum in the TV band and elsewhere; network neutrality and applying Carterfone consumer choice to wireless carriers, open platforms, and the future of technology in community broadband.

Using Wireless Networks to Protect Human Rights

Community wireless can directly contribute to human rights work around the world. Especially in poorer countries, building the communication capacity of local human rights groups can be vital for the protection of marginalized or threatened communities. Wireless networks could be used in efforts to: organize relief efforts in refugee camps; monitor and report the situation of communities in remote areas; document violations and mobilize communities under threat; and forge campaigns to defend or secure human rights. This panel will consider these and other ways in which community wireless can potentially enhance the work of human rights organizations around the world.

Defending the Right to Communicate: CWNs and Human Rights

The right "to seek, receive, and impart information" (Article 19) is a universal right enshrined in international human rights law. Community wireless is helping to make this right a reality. This panel will discuss how the normative and legal framework of human rights can be used to promote and protect the community wireless movement's efforts to provide access to the internet and to all who seek it.

CWNs and the Developing World

Panelists will define the successes and challenges facing community wireless initiatives in the developing world. Representing CWN projects from India, Ghana, and Tibet, this panel will discuss network ownership models and the low cost open source technologies that help set-up and maintain their community wireless networks.

Data Collection for Community Wireless Networks

This panel will present recent user surveys conducted in Montreal, Budapest, New York, and Fredericton, in addition to data from wireless data collection nodes on mesh devices. How can studying users and the growth of CWNs contribute to our understanding of the ways in which wireless networks are different from or similar to traditional wired broadband infrastructure? In what ways are community wireless activists themselves lead users and innovators of a disruptive technology? How do their uses foreshadow mainstream uses of WiFi networks or how they are unique?

Digital Inclusion and the Social Impact of Community Wireless Net ...

This panel will share examples of current digital inclusion initiatives and community wireless projects aimed at increasing connectivity in traditionally underserved communities in the United States and Eastern Europe. What socio-economic barriers prevent certain communities from taking advantage of digital opportunities? How can community wireless projects tackle these obstacles and help bridge the digital divide?

Community Wireless Business Models

This panel will cover business models currently used by community wireless projects around the world. What are the benefits and limitations of non-profit and corporate partnerships? What about public ownership options? What lessons can be learned from recent municipal wireless developments?

Long Distance and Low Powered Wireless

This panel will discuss several initiatives designed to improve the Media Access Layer and enhance performance by using high gain antennas to extend range. An especially relevant topic for rural areas where interference, the Achilles' heel of WiFi, is less pronounced and the lack of traditional infrastructure prevalent, this panel will focus on how initiatives have been implemented and networks established in countries of South America, Africa, and India. New results on wireless link trials at distance of hundreds of kilometers and the use of low cost instruments for the required antenna alignment will be presented. Furthermore, panelists will discuss the use of intelligent charge controllers and energy efficient devices that decrease wasted power, of particular importance where fotovoltaic energy is the only viable source.

Tech and Implementation Workshop

Current technologies of Freifunk Free Wireless Networks

Tech and Implementation Workshop

Free and Open Source Tools

Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are networks consisting of spatially distributed autonomous devices using sensors to cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or pollutants, at different locations. Wireless sensor networks are now used in many civilian application areas, including environment and habitat monitoring, healthcare applications, home automation, and traffic control. Panelists will present on 1) CitySense, an urban scale sensor network test bed that is being developed by researchers at Harvard University and BBN Technologies. 2) The research carried out at the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing on participatory-sensing systems, based on automated, programmable, and adaptive collection of environmental, physiological, and social parameters at the personal and community level; 3) Project Sun SPOT, a development kit for embedded deployments built on the Java platform.

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