About us

Network Bogotá: The open wireless network of Bogotá, Colombia

Network Bogotá is a community initiative taking place in Bogotá, Colombia. The main aim of Network Bogotá is to conceive, develop and deploy an open, neutral and decentralized communications network for neighborhoods or other communities in Bogotá. Such network can be structured over wifi or wired links, with different topologies present on it: mesh, point-to-point, etc. As a consequence, Network Bogotá is mainly run by volunteers who share and invest their spare time, without expecting any monetary profit from the activity of creating a community network, but the satisfaction and the joy of putting the knowledge and the will for empowering a breakthrough on the way the inhabitants of Bogotá communicate themselves through ICT’s.

Moreover, the Network Bogotá volunteer core is composed by a multi-disciplinary team, ranging from different interests, needs, points of view given from careers or academic formation.

On the communities where Network Bogotá is already operating, the project intends to setup local services, that will be fed by the community itself. Such services are detailed as follows:

  • Local Wikipedia mirror server
  • Community radio and video
  • Open source software repository
  • Blogs
  • Video survelliance through open source CCTV Software
  • Local IP Telephony

It is not enough to setup network infrastructure in any given community if there is not knowledge about its usage. That’s why Network Bogotá provides training and education on the following areas:

  • Open Source software
  • Open Information and Communication Technologies
  • Critical and basic Digital Literacy
  • Networking basic and advanced skills
  • DOs and Dont’s on a open communications network.

 

Network Bogotá has already up and running 5 nodes, in different setups and infrastructure. All of them are wifi links, ranging from 80 meters to 200 meters, point-to-multipont and mesh links. The backbone on these nodes is OpenWRT, an open source firmware for a wide range of wireless appliances.

Some of the firmwares based on OpenWRT and tested in Network Bogotá are:

  • Freifunk
  • qMp
  • Altermesh/Libremesh

This about us page is always in a beta state, since the project is always evolving and growing constantly. For any further contact in English, please leave a message to the list: [email protected] or suscribe