Category: open technology institute

Connecting San Francisco Low-Income Housing with Monkey Brains – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 264

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After we saw April Glaser's article on a local San Francisco ISP connecting low-income housing to high-quality Internet access, we knew we wanted to learn more. Preston Rhea is the Senior Field Engineer for Monkey Brains and someone we knew from his work with the Open Technology Institute at New America. He joins us with Mason Carroll, Lead Engineer for Monkey Brains, to explain what they are doing in Hunters Point and more broadly across San Francisco.Monkey Brains delivers Internet access primarily via high-capacity fixed-wireless links to buildings with multiple tenants. Working with the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, they are delivering gigabit access to low-income housing units at Hunters Point. Preston and Mason discuss the process, the challenges, the long-term plan, and more. In particular, they discuss why good wiring in each building is important for ensuring high-quality access to each household rather than just relying on common Wi-Fi access points around the buildings. Silicon Beat also covered this story.Read the transcript of the show here.We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.This show is 28 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

Recent Advances in the Wireless Future – Community Broadband Bits Episode 154

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After reading “Amtrak's Lessons for Access to the Airwaves,” I knew we wanted to talk to Michael Calabrese and Patrick Lucey of the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation to discuss wireless policy. Unfortunately, scheduling challenges kept Patrick off the this show but we do have a great discussion for this week's Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast with Michael Calabrese, who runs the Wireless Future program at OTI.

We discuss the wireless technology Amtrak has wanted to deploy and alternatives that would have been less costly and more quickly to implement. However, this is really just an opportunity to begin the larger discussion about where wireless is going.

We also talk about a recent FCC decision to create much more shared spectrum and how the new system will work, which was also described in a presentation by Milo Medin at the 2015 Freedom to Connect event.

If you enjoy this discussion, you may be interested in our previous discussions with Dewayne Hendricks.

Read the transcript from our conversation here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show – please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 25 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.

Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is “Blues walk.”

Sascha Meinrath Causes a Commotion on Community Broadband Bits #41

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Sascha Meinrath, Director of the Open Technology Institute (OTI) at the New America Foundation, joined me at the National Conference for Media Reform to discuss what OTI does and to discuss the Commotion Wireless project.

Commotion is a project that is making it easier for anyone to build wireless mesh networks that allow for secure, affordable, and resilient communications. We explain what each of these components mean and why each is important.

We also discuss the ways in which these networks can make the powerful worry about what happens when all citizens can talk amongst themselves without being wiretapped or overcharged. Commotion should be a game changer both at home and abroad.

Read the transcript from our conversation here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show – please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.

This show is 20 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment!

Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to D. Charles Speer & the Helix for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.