Waterville Free Network


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NEWS:
February, 2007 - The Waterville area appears to be on track to get some measure of expansion in wireless (wifi) service. A combination of City, Waterville Main Street and community folks are getting together a plan to expand wireless to all of downtown. This is great news for Waterville. We at WFN are happy this is happening and look forward to the developments. We might still try some other expansion in the meantime if we get some hardware, but for now we're as we were. Thanks to the hundreds of you who have been using the wireless thus far. IT's good to have you here. Stay Warm!!!

November, 2006 - The Waterville Free Network is looking to expand. To help us with this plan, we would like to acquire some new hardware. The specific hardware we're looking for is the Linksys WRT54GL. This is a device that run on open source software and allows us to change the operating system so that we can do a lot more with the operating system. If you're interested in giving us one or five of these (that's a joke, you can give whatever you'd like) we'd be happy to accept them. We'd like to expand the network as much as we can and, with your help, we can do so. If you're a business, we can put some ads on the web site for you (tasteful banners or text links, like google ads) as well as some great big thank you notes to post in your establishment. So, the Waterville Free Network has these devices on our Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/Yule list. Thanks for your support.


What is the Waterville Free Network?

The Waterville Free Network is a freely accessible wireless network in and around downtown Waterville, Maine. Unregistered visitors and registered members may use the Internet via their laptop computers if equiped with 802.11b compatible network devices (WiFi card). The network is "Free" like beer, meaning that you don't have to pay for it. It is not entirely "Free" as in access or speech, as doing so would create a haven for crackers and spammers to exploit the network. As ones level of accountability in the network increases, so does their network freedom.

The Waterville Free Network began with two primary purposes. One, to be a place to play with wireless networking technology so that we (myself and friends) could learn how it works and how to build such a network. Two, for purely selfish reasons, dreamed up over 18 months ago to be able to sit in Jorgenson's on Main Street and drink coffee and surf the net at the same time.

Since that time, it has grown to become a portion of a Maine Wireless Users Group (MEWUG at mewug.org) network and a cause celeb of the Downtown Waterville group. Downtown Waterville sees it as a way to draw people into downtown, as that's a good thing to focus on. Waterville already has a fine selection of decent downtown restaurants, so adding more reasons is icing on the cake.

Find the network useful? Want to make someone happy because this network made you happy? See our contact page to see how you can help.

  • Press - Morning Sentinel, April 25, 2005
  • Read John's review of "Wireless Hacks" by Rob Flickenger.
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