WiFi in Australia

I’ve been tracking the usage statistics for WiFi in Australia (WIA) using Google Analytics over the last couple of months. I hadn’t looked for the last month and a bit, so it was a surprise to me that a decent proportion of the traffic was coming from the domain freesydneywireless.com - the site for Free Sydney Wireless (FSW). I went and checked out the site and it turns out that in mid February the crew running Free Sydney Wireless wrote a brief (and encouragingly positive) feature on WIA! I think this may explain why the Sydney hotspot map is easily our fastest growing map. I’m really stoked to see the Sydney WiFi community getting behind this project.

A little more about Free Sydney Wireless:

Free Sydney Wireless website

FSW is a project site and blog for the setup of a wireless MESH network. To quote FSW, who in turn are quoting Meraki (a MESH network hardware manufacturer):

Mesh networking is a powerful way to blanket any area with wireless Internet access. In most wireless networks each access point is plugged directly into an Internet connection. But Meraki mesh networks are different. Our repeaters communicate wirelessly with each other, meaning that each repeater can provide Internet access, even without its own direct connection. In fact, in an average Meraki mesh network, only one of every 10 repeaters needs to be physically connected to the Internet. This makes it possible to build a bigger network that’s surprisingly affordable and more reliable.

If you are interested in the concept of a wireless MESH network, please take the time to visit the Free Sydney Wireless site. Not in Sydney? No problems! The FSW site also has links to other MESH network startups, including groups for Canberra and Western Australia. Definitely worth checking out!