Wireless Networking In The Developing World: A Self Published Book That's Open Content.
Submitted by Taran on Fri, 02/24/2006 - 10:16
Via the Global Knowledge Development Discussion (GKD), I came across an eBook that is not only deserving of mention - it deserves to be read. And before you run away from the site screaming about yet another book to buy - you don't have to buy it. You can legally download it at no cost, as long as you don't use it for commercial purposes.
The book? Wireless Networking In The Developing World. How the book itself was done is... no pun intended... novel:
...This book was started as the BookSprint project at the 2005 session of WSFII, in London, England (http://www.wsfii.org/). A core team of seven people built the initial outline over the course of the event, presented the results at the conference, and wrote the book over the course of a few months. Rob Flickenger served as the lead author and editor. Throughout the project, the core group has actively solicited contributions and feedback from the wireless networking community...
The short and easy review is simple: If you're doing wireless networking for the first time anywhere, or want to get a better grasp of wireless networks, either download the 2 megabyte PDF version for screen viewing, or download the 9.4 megabyte version for printing, or buy the book from Lulu.com.
For the review, I downloaded the 2 megabyte screen version. There are 252 PDF pages in the book, though there are 2 blank pages at the end that make it look like 254.
The Book
Chapter One, 'Where To Begin', gives a nice overview of the book and the technologies involved - and it also has a Questions and Answers section for people who got the book and want to bend it to a purpose. IEEE standards such as 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11a. Questions such as, 'How expensive will it be?' and, 'How far will my little network propagate?' point to the relevant sections so that you don't have to read the book from one end to the next - instead, being able to answer the hot questions burning in your mind.
The physics of radio is covered in Chapter 2, and while simple, it goes to a fair depth. There's a great introduction to the Fresnel Zone within this chapter - a tough thing to explain to people, but it is readable and easily understandable. 15 years ago, I studied a lot of this and this book was a welcome refresher.
Network design in Chapter 3 is the must read and understand chapter in this book. It's so important that people understand that designing a network and implementing a network are separate things. Implementation happens after design; forecasting capacities and optimizations before putting an antenna in place is very important - even for a small wireless network. Why? Because in networking, the principles of operation are necessary for troubleshooting when things go wrong. A lot of wireless technology has become ubiquitous, but understanding how the technology itself works is important to better understand how things are best optimized - and more practically, how to troubleshoot. When I taught network design, I found it was hard for people to 'see' the network without physical wires - and that's important for design and troubleshooting.
Chapter 4 covers antennas - even including the cantenna made famous with Pringles cans. Networking hardware and Security are covered in following chapters.
'Building an Outdoor Node', Chapter 7, deserves mention since it's largely what separates the amateurs from the professionals. Water proof enclosures, providing power and mounting considerations are all covered - as well as the largely overlooked issues of surges and lightning. You just can't expect to stick a piece of metal high up in the air without considering the electrical effects of nature. It even goes into powering the node 'off the grid' using Wind and Solar power (I have done a wireless network run by solar power indoors).
Chapter 8, 'Troubleshooting', is probably where most people will spend their time with this book - and the authors seemed to know that. It's well written, in depth, and just reading through it was educational.
The Case Studies in Chapter 9 were interesting to read; how problems in Timbuktu, Gao, New York and East Africa were solved by tailoring the knowledge (now in this book) to different problems in different parts of the world.
The Appendices are full of resources, and recommend a few other books which I've also listed below.
Conclusion
This is a book worth having if you're a professional or an amateur. The pro might show the book to someone else to explain something; the amateur might read the book to see what they don't know (as I did) and come away better. Few books stand the test of time, but I think that as long as IEEE 802.11 is around, this book will be a resource worth looking into. That it was published through Lulu.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 book is really a wonderful thing, since it allows people throughout the world to use the book and add to it. In fact, you can still join the mailing list, or give feedback on the Wiki.
This is a true open content book written by a group of authors with contributors throughout the wireless networking community. The resulting book is a testimony to people working together and sharing information, and I consider myself fortunate that they decided to write this book. And when you look at the prices of some of the additional books of related topics that are pointed to, the value of this book is apparent.
Congratulations to the authors.
Additional Books this Book Points To
Image at top is of my little wireless router using solar energy for power. The original image is here.
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