Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Student-led project deploys community wireless network across the city of Southampton

The Southampton Open Wireless Project (SOWN) is a community and research project led by students and staff in the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS). SOWN is investigating the technologies and infrastructure needed to deploy effective city-wide WiFi network coverage in a domestic area using hot-spots placed strategically to link up to a full-scale network.

In order to create the network SOWN has deployed wireless nodes in student houses around the Highfield Campus. Whilst sharing student’s bandwidth in each house, there is enough left over to allow other people to access the network and therefore the Internet.

‘Relying on community involvement has allowed SOWN to deploy its network in hard to reach places, as well as giving internet access to large swathes of student areas around the city,’ said Stuart Harland, a student in ECS.

Members of the public can gain access to the wireless network by obtaining an account from SOWN, for which there is no charge. In addition to providing a high level of uptime and capability for its users in Southampton, SOWN is a test bed for new technology. The SOWN team are currently working on research on several key areas of wireless technology, including the development of multicasting audio and video streams, 802.1x Authentication, Transparent Mobility, Wireless VoIP, Wireless Location Tracking and deploying IPv6.

According to David Tarrant, SOWN is unique in that it is the only "non commercial, research network, student led, wide scale wireless network" around.

Since it began several years ago, SOWN has amassed a large amount of information on testing wireless devices, implementation of hardware and software solutions, and a whole volume of technical knowledge.

It can be found at http://www.sown.org.uk.

Helene Murphy | alfa
Further information:
http://www.sown.org.uk

Im Focus: Scientists present new observations to understand the phase transition in quantum chromodynamics

The building blocks of matter in our universe were formed in the first 10 microseconds of its existence, according to the currently accepted scientific picture. After the Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago, matter consisted mainly of quarks and gluons, two types of elementary particles whose interactions are governed by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interaction. In the early universe, these particles moved (nearly) freely in a quark-gluon plasma.

This is a joint press release of University Muenster and Heidelberg as well as the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt.

Then, in a phase transition, they combined and formed hadrons, among them the building blocks of atomic nuclei, protons and neutrons. In the current issue of...

Im Focus: Patented nanostructure for solar cells: Rough optics, smooth surface

Thin-film solar cells made of crystalline silicon are inexpensive and achieve efficiencies of a good 14 percent. However, they could do even better if their shiny surfaces reflected less light. A team led by Prof. Christiane Becker from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) has now patented a sophisticated new solution to this problem.

"It is not enough simply to bring more light into the cell," says Christiane Becker. Such surface structures can even ultimately reduce the efficiency by...

Im Focus: New soft coral species discovered in Panama

A study in the journal Bulletin of Marine Science describes a new, blood-red species of octocoral found in Panama. The species in the genus Thesea was discovered in the threatened low-light reef environment on Hannibal Bank, 60 kilometers off mainland Pacific Panama, by researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama (STRI) and the Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (CIMAR) at the University of Costa Rica.

Scientists established the new species, Thesea dalioi, by comparing its physical traits, such as branch thickness and the bright red colony color, with the...

Im Focus: New devices based on rust could reduce excess heat in computers

Physicists explore long-distance information transmission in antiferromagnetic iron oxide

Scientists have succeeded in observing the first long-distance transfer of information in a magnetic group of materials known as antiferromagnets.

Im Focus: Finding Nemo's genes

An international team of researchers has mapped Nemo's genome

An international team of researchers has mapped Nemo's genome, providing the research community with an invaluable resource to decode the response of fish to...