During calmer times, the ad-hoc culture of open-source wireless, mesh networking and free municipal Wi-Fi is often seen as outside of the industry mainstream.
But those alternative approaches are perfect in crises where conventional infrastructure is damaged, said Sascha Meinrath of the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network.
Last week, CUWireless launched the "Katrina Community Wireless Rapid Response" project to funnel grass-roots offers toward areas in need.
"We have a breakdown in many of the things that people rely on to deploy these systems, and then we have people whose expertise is in rubber-banding and bubble-gum-sticking and pulling together things with whatever's at hand," Meinrath told Wired News. "That's very much what we need right now -- people with that level of improvisation and expertise."
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