Wireless Cloud

The Camfield Estates-MIT Creating Community Connection Project

The Camfield Estates-MIT Creating Community Connection Project and the website www.camfieldestates.net went online in the fall of 2000. The project’s successful implementation in the community required the coordinated efforts of academia, community leaders, neighborhood residents, academics, researchers, service providers and the funding community. The stated mission and goals of the project are:

• To promote a stronger, healthier community at Camfield Estates.
• To establish greater levels of empowerment and self-sufficiency among residents at Camfield Estates.
• To create connections between residents at Camfield Estates, local organizations, neighborhood businesses, and other community members.
• To enable residents at Camfield Estates to be the creators and producers of their own information and content on the Internet.

In addition to understanding the relationship between technology, community building, empowerment and self-sufficiency, the project was also very mindful to create a useful resource for the community. Moreover, nurturing the necessary physical; and intellectual infrastructures at Camfield was sought so that residents could take full advantage of their new technological resource. Given these goals and important considerations the Creating Community Connection Project was formed.

Participation in the Creating Community Connections Project was open to any Camfield resident. All participants signed an informed consent form (see appendix xxx) agreeing to the pre and post interview survey, participation in basic computer literacy training, and to allow web log monitoring of their internet activities. Incentive for participation in the project was receipt of a free personal computer, free computer training and two years of free high-speed Internet service. Additional services provided to participants and also available to household members included targeted workshops on how to use the Internet to find specific resources online such as apartment listings and other social services, educational resources, banking, shopping, medical and government services.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation provided primary support for the project in the form of a monetary grant, followed by in-kind donations from Hewlett-Packard Company (computers), RCN Telecom Services (cable-modem Internet service), Microsoft Corporation (software), and ArsDigita Corporation (software and technical support), with additional support from MHFA (Now MassHousing), Williams Consulting Services, Lucent Technologies, HUD, the Institute for African-American eCulture (iAAEC), YouthBuild of Boston, and the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Camfield Estates Wireless Project

The high-speed Internet connectivity was initially offered through RCN a local cable and Internet service provider. Each project participant was equipped with a cable modem and the necessary protocol settings. In November of 2002 the high-speed cable modem Internet service committed to jointly by MIT and RCN came to an end. For many participants the high-speed connectivity was something they had become accustomed to but at that time we saw the market rate of $39.99/month as being potentially cost prohibitive. Hence, the created demand brought about the emergence of this wireless alternative.

The cost of wireless technology has dropped dramatically in recent years. To institute the wireless service a high-speed, fairly high-bandwidth Internet connection would be needed to support a multi-user wireless network. The Camfield Neighborhood Technology Center already had a MassHousing supported Internet service via a fractional T1 line. The fractional T1 at connection at about 750K can comfortably support about 100 Internet users depending on what they are doing. This represented a very usable access point for a wireless network.

In the spring of 2003 with the assistance of the Telcom Solutions and financial support from MassIMPACT and HUD, wireless antennas were installed on the roof of the Camfield community center and connected to the Internet through technology center’s fractional T1 line. A T1 DSU/CSU WAN InterfaceCard, CISCO 1721 router and 4 Cisco Omni-directional indoor/outdoor antennas, with a range of 5000 ft. at 2Mbps and 1600 ft. at 11 Mbps was used. Camfield residents, with a wireless card, can now potentially connect to the Internet from anywhere on the development (See Figure 1).

Figure 1. Camfield Estates layout

All buildings (in gold) approximately 32 ft. high Community Center (in red) approximately 17 ft. high Tremont Street side approximately 148.63 ft. long Camden Street side 928.18 ft. long Lenox Street side 974.29 ft. long

One of the challenges discovered during testing is that each unit does not have direct line of site with the antennas atop the NTC. This can create a weak or inconsistent signal to the unit that has an obstructed view. One method of getting around this problem is to install repeaters on the top of the buildings that do have direct line of site to carry the wireless signal to those units with the obstructed view. Repeaters essentially receive the signal from the main antenna connected to the access point and retransmit the signal at the same rate in the direction it is pointed to. At the time of this writing the system was still be tested with five units at the development by the technical support staff of the Camfield Neighborhood Technology Center.

Wireless Security

For many wireless projects, security is the biggest challenge for getting user buy-in. For Camfield Estates’ system, the security system being used is proprietary Media Access Control (MAC) address filtering with 128bit encryption. With MAC address filtering an Internet access point is pre-programmed to allow only devices with a specified MAC address to access the network. This method is useful for a small network but having to manually program each MAC address into the access point can be cumbersome for larger wireless networks. The 128bit encryption secures the signal from the access point to the programmed wireless card. Many wireless signals are encrypted at 64bit encryption so 128bit adds a slightly higher level of signal security.

Media Coverage

The Camfield Estates Wireless Project has received print media coverage from USA Today, the Boston Globe and CNN.com/Technology.

CNN.cm/Technology (02/24/2003) - Low-income housing goes wireless, By
associated Press

Boston Globe (02/19/2003) – Projects gets Urban Dwellers on the Web with Wireless Technology

USA Today (11/17/2002) – Bringing free wireless access to the people, By Donna Rosato