Jawug

From JAWUG

Johannesburg Area Wireless Users Group is a group of private citizens interested in creating an interconnected network of computers across the greater Johannesburg area using 802.11 technologies.

Jawug is the First South African wireless users group to be created in South Africa. It is a non-profit community organization providing a Wireless community network in Johannesburg.

The vision of JAWUG is to create the largest Community run Wireless Network in the Johannesburg area. At this point, we are the only stable Community network in Johannesburg.

The initial purpose of Jawug was as an experimental network, for developing new applications and gaining experience with new communications technologies.

The initiative was sparked due to South Africa’s restrictive telecommunications environment. The South African telecommunications industry has historically been known for monopolistic behaviours and high prices.Jawug provides free IP connectivity to its users for non-commercial use

Founded in November 2002, Jawug started out as an experiment between two friends. In 2004, it officially called itself Jawug, and started actively seeking new members Financial Mail: Wildcat Wi-Fi is here

In August 2009, the users of Jawug adopted the Jawug Constitution and elected to become a Club. This move enabled Jawug to contribute and participate in the South African telecommunications industry in a more official capacity.

All equipment is funded by donations from the community, and all Highsite installations and maintenance is done by volunteers in their spare time.

Jawug is the 4th largest wireless network organization in the world, behind AWMN (Greece), TWMN (Greece), Ptawug (South Africa). PTAWUG and Jawug do not provide internet access, so taking this into consideration, makes Jawug the 2nd largest on earth.

Community

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Community members erecting the Die Wilgers tower

JAWUG unites a number of people in the IT field, sharing of information as well as learning helps member to progress. The community is responsible for the network - volunteers maintain the highsites physically as well as the software configuration thereof.

This knowledge and these skills which are learnt by "playing" with WiFi networks is very valuable to South Africa and Africa as there is a great skills shortage in South Africa and on the continent.

JAWUG is an inclusive network, no one is denied access, it is built totally on openness and collaboration between members. There is no hierarchy on the network, all users are equal. The ages of members connected to JAWUG range from teens to 60+, different income groups and races are represented as well.

Regular meetings are held where new developments are discussed, the great South African tradition of a braai is part of these meetings.

The main communication medium on JAWUG is IRC as this technology enables all the 'wuggers' to speak to each other, using PCs or cellphones, at the same time to easily plan expansion or discuss hardware/software problems on the network.

Many of the skills members learn by using and being involved in the network they apply in their careers.<ref>Free networks grow</ref>

Network Infrastructure

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Pretoria North Tower

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Constantia Park highsite

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Mikrotik routerboard installed in enclosure

The lack of a stable periodical income prevents JAWUG from renting equipment space on commercial towers in and around Johanessburg, and all highsites are put up on privately owned properties, with the permission of the owners. Private properties and homes located in high areas are most frequently used for highsites as they have good line of sight to the surrounding areas providing greater coverage for connecting clients. There are currently four towers in use of which three were built by the members as a team and access to the other one was arranged by one of the members. The rest of the highsites are located either on high buildings (like office blocks) or at private residences in strategic places.

Some facts and stats:

JAWUG utilizes the 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz public spectrum using mostly Mikrotik equipment.
Some users use Linksys WRT54GL routers to connect as well as Ubiquity Nanostations.
The IEEE 802.11a (5.8 GHz) standard is preferred over IEEE 802.11b or IEEE 802.11g (2.4 GHz) as commercialization in the 2.4 GHz range over recent years is a cause of high noise levels (measured in SNR or Signal to Noise Ratio), especially with commercial service providers distributing ADSL WiFi Modems freely with their service contracts,<ref>http://www.telkom.co.za/athome/products/dsl/home_reduced.html Free Modem Bundles</ref>.
There are 700 km of point to point backbone links running on JAWUG, mostly using 27dbi grid antennas and running at 48Mbit/s.
Network throughput may vary from a few kB/second up to as much as 4 MB/second depending on factors including network load, signal strength, signal quality and route length.
The Border Gateway Protocol BGP routing protocol is used to build and distribute the routing table between the highsites with static routing used for last mile routing purposes.
The community are constantly testing and trying different wireless QoS implementations to improve network usability and speed.
The current QoS solution used is a part of the Mikrotik developed WMM protocol.

Services Provided

All services are community built. The nature of the TCP/IP network provided serves as an opportunity for any user to install and provide Servers or services for many possible applications. Due to the cost of Internet Services in South Africa, many of these services provide free and open access to services that would otherwise deem a costly exercise.

A weather station located in Moreleta Park, Pretoria is linked directly to the network - http://weather.bresler.co.za to be accessed freely by wug members.
A myriad of popular gaming servers are hosted by users and on-line games are played on a daily basis.
A VoIP server enables users to talk to each other via software and hardware phones.
Open Source repositories are shared on a regular basis.
Users share and contribute their programming and networking skills.
Wugtube, User's videos as well as the hard work on High Sites are shared on a server similar to youtube.

Collaboration

The Johanessburg Wireless Users Group works closely with the Pretoria Area Wireless Users Group (PTAWUG) - they have two links running between them - 22 km and 40 km. JAWUG also swap ideas with Cape Town Wireless Users Group and Durban Wireless Community.
JAWUG and PTAWUG might merge in the future and form Gauteng (the province in which Pretoria and Johannesburg are located) Wireless Users Group - GAUWUG
mybroadband.co.za, a well known local technology news website also supports both PTAWUG and Jawug by prodividing the wugs with publicity as well as sponsoring meetings.

Growth

In the past year (2007-2008) the network has exploded from 4 users to 500+ users<ref>PTAWUG user count</ref>, all helping each other, playing games, sharing tips etc. The network grows at the rate about 10 new users a month. JAWUG has also extended its network by connecting to several other wireless networks including PTAWUG (Pretoria Wireless Users Group). The exponential growth is mainly attributable to the free-for-all and open community principals governing JAWUG, as users contribute their time, income and knowledge freely without hindrance of a governing body. The vast interest in IT and ICT amongst a very broad range of South Africans, coupled with the limitations in affordable South African commercial communication solutions further ensure rapid growth of PTAWUG, and other South African wireless user groups.