M: I am Marcela.
L: And I am Luisa.
M: We are part of the Portal sem Porteiras or gateless portal...
L: ...an association created to formalize our community network
L: Today our community network has an infrastructure of 12 nodes, omnidirectional and sectorial radios that connect to a mesh. These points were programmed to communicate with each other thanks to LibreMesh, a software installed to replace the factory firmware, changing the way the router thinks.
With a server we have an infrastructure that allows us to circulate our own information creating a local network. In addition, a pair of directional radios with a 30dbi antenna make the long-distance link to the gateway, or the connection to the "Big Internet".
M: This idea started three years ago. Since then we went up, down and up the mountain again carrying the antenna on our back, connected and disconnected from the internet, hosted our local network in a Raspberry, changed it to a Tvbox and then to a 4TB server. We have limited access requesting coupons for connection, opened the network and established the association, learned to always keep contracts, and we are still in the process of regularisation.
But despite all the technical problems we got involved in, I really wanted to talk about people, about the relationships with my neighbours, with my community. Because, in addition to the technique, which does present many difficulties, as a community network we propose to integrate this virtual network into the many other layers of relationships that already exist between people. And this is our biggest challenge.
Continue reading (or listen to the podcast in Spanish) at GenderIT.org.