Last Sunday we gave out 6 nodes to neighbors of the Omni.
Most people who have joined PeoplesOpen in the past are people who are attracted to the technical and/or political message of mesh networks. They're willing to put in some effort and are often somewhat technically savvy.
The people we gave nodes to on Sunday had not heard of PeoplesOpen before we rang their doorbell, and were often hesitant about the idea, thinking that it would be technically difficult or intimidating.
I think that we need to think about what will make it as easy as possible for a new user to get a node set up.
Another consideration is conversion. I think it's really hard to convince someone to hook a node up to their ISP connection and contribute upstream bandwidth the first time you knock on their door. If the dashboard has some information about how much data has been forwarded, this could help people feel ownership of the network and make them more likely to contribute bandwidth.
Draft 1:
Hi, I'm a PeoplesOpen.net node. I connect to other nodes around me to move internet data. If there are enough nodes in an area, we form a "mesh network" which can provide internet access without the need for an ISP.
Right now, I have 3 mesh neighbors: mesh26, mesh11, and sally_b.
We're connected to the internet through mesh26.
I've transferred 10gb of data to and from my neighbors.
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I can also connect to a home internet connection and donate bandwidth to the PeoplesOpen.net. Donated bandwidth is what keeps the network going. I'll automatically stop sharing bandwidth if you are using your connection. You can turn sharing on and off here:
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| Start Sharing |
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I've transferred 0gb of data to and from the internet.