Wireless Project

Technology For All is on the brink of deploying a wireless mesh network for research and public use in the Pecan Park community surrounding TFA's Mission Milby Program Office in southeast Houston.  Joseph Camp, an MS/PhD student at Rice University with the TAPs group (http://taps.rice.edu), is spearheading the effort by using off-the-shelf Mesh Access Points (MeshAP) developed by several vendors.  The MeshAPs will wirelessly communicate to one another at distances well beyond the typical range of home or even commercial access points to provide a wireless backbone throughout the square mile.  Each access point will additionally offer Internet service at speeds of greater than 1Mbps for the users within their range.  Together TFA and Rice hope to concurrently bring wireless broadband Internet access to the neighborhood to stimulate economic development while building a network research test bed that will provide potential masters thesis material on traffic engineering, multi-hop fairness, and community mesh networks.

To view a PowerPoint summary of the project, click here.