Introduction to the Mid-Atlantic IP Network - Broadband Wireless

See ratpac.us

[From W1LEM:  I organized this presentation after hearing Al at my MD club.  Bruce WA3SWJ  know's Al from his pre-Cape days.]
I will be describing an effort in the Washington, DC metro area to establish a metropolitan area network based on point-to-point microwave links that is independent of the commercial internet. The design intent is to provide backup broadband communications to hospitals and emergency operations centers in the served area, as well as to support more typical Amateur Radio applications such as repeater linking. I will describe the overall architecture of the network and explain why we made key design choices. I want to emphasize that the network is largely aspirational at this point, although it reaches into three states. I'll describe in detail the technical, organizational, and physical obstacles that we have encountered along the way and lessons learned. I hope this information will be useful to others who seek to build similar networks.

Presenter: Al Taylor, K3NU
My primary ham radio interests are emergency communications and designing and building equipment. I have been a member of ARES since 1978 and have served as an EC and SEC in Maryland. I spent much of my career designing mission-critical electronics for aerospace, industrial, and medical applications. However, from 1992 to 1996, I served as a full-time disaster responder with the U. S. Public Health Service, setting up communications for responding health and medical teams following major disasters. Recently retired, now I'm back to being an emergency communications volunteer at the local level.