The first data to come from Nicaragua over the BGAN - thumbnail images of photos.
Yesterday as well as talking on Skype, Paul and Carlos set up the BGAN terminal on the hotel roof and sent us back the first set of photos.
Paul’s Asus Eee PC 901 was running as a web server (using LAMPP). The Linksys WRT54GL he was using as a router gave him a local wireless network and registered the IP address it was given by the BGAN terminal (operating on modem mode) with our DynDNS service.
Paul doing a five finger lag test on a Skype video call using the hotel's ADSL cable connection (8.8MB mp4 video)
Yesterday Paul and I chatted on Skype using Skype’s video phone option. Here’s the video I recorded from my screen, while we did a quick five finger test. This test involves putting up your hand and holding out your fingers then closing each finger as you count down from five to none. The video gives a reasonable indication of lag.
Today due to not feeling the best I remained at the hotel which started off slow but as it progressed a rather productive day was had regarding ERA.
The best intentions I had of blogging at the end of the day seems somewhat difficult to achieve due to the reasons covered in today’s personal blog section. Therefore at best expect an update as and when they arrive!
My intention is to post one blog a day separated into three sections, ERA, iPhone and Personal, in order to cover all aspects of my trip to Masaya.
Yesterday and today I have been testing the procedures for connecting over wired and wireless networks to live video streaming and static image transfer. Below are details of my journey starting with live video streaming over a wired network without 3G and then over 3G.
Wired Network (no 3G)
The equipment being used is a Billion wireless-N/3G ADSL Router, two Eee PC netbooks, a MacBook Pro and a an EDIMax IC-3010WG dual mode camera.
The following procedures should be used to test the bandwidth on all connects types in the field prior to performing any other tests to establish the quality of connection.
Full details on what Iperf is and how to use it can be found here. The tests can be performed via the Terminal or the GUI interface both of which give the same results but the GUI provides a useful visual representation to aid interpretation of results.
IAx Dual Server - Peer to User configuration for registering an Asterisk server with a dynamic IP with a static IP Asterisk server.
We’ve been developing VoIP support for ERA in the Portable VoWLAN Project (funded by JISC). JANET, through their Portable WLAN Programme, are helping us to investigate backhaul links so that our field students could access resources over the internet.
We’ve recently been using IAX2 to connect two Asterisk servers. Initially, the two Asterisk machines were on fixed IP addresses and all was working well. However, we wanted to arrange things so that one of the servers could be running on a netbook and connecting to the internet with a dynamic IP address (either through ADSL, a 3G mobile broadband connection, or a satellite link).
After a little hunting we came across the Asterisk – dual servers page on the voip-info.org wiki. Following their guidelines for users and peers we now have a (dynamic IP) field site Asterisk server that can connect and register with our (fixed IP) base server. Now anyone in the field can talk to anyone on the OU network.
We’ve been fortunate enough to try out the JANET Portable WLAN set up between the Open University and a live volcano in Nicaragua! This certainly wasn’t planned for when we started, but never turn down a fantastic opportunity to really test “in the wild” when you get a chance…
Paul testing equipment. The next time you see this man, he'll be on a live volcano!
One of our colleagues, Paul Hogan, has been asked to help develop an Augmented Reality (AR) application for the iPhone and see if this could support geophysicists and environmental scientists exploring a volcano in Nicaragua. The Earth Sciences team, led by Dr. Hazel Rymer, kindly invited Paul to come out to the volcano. Paul’s been helping us with ERA development, one conversation led to another, and we’ve ended up being given the opportunity to try some Portable WLAN tests from the volcano back to the Open University. If we succeed, this might provide some useful communication tools to allow them to work with colleagues who are not able to get out to the volcano, or perhaps help the scientists on the volcano to access expertise or resources from elsewhere, live.
So we’ve been training Paul up on using the ERA equipment, and we’ll be trying to establish BGAN satellite and 3G phone network connections between him on the volcano and us in the less tropical Milton Keynes this February.ย A very exciting opportunity indeed, watch this blog for progress reports.
Chris on Whitby foreshore testing voice and video, with field antennae in the background
This blog has been set up as a place for notes and field data collected as part of the Portable WLAN project.
Mark O’Leary and his colleagues at JANET are running a Portable WLAN Programme to investigate options for extending network access to off-the-grid locations. As part of that programme we’re looking at ways in which a portable wireless local area network can be used to support fieldwork courses, and potential options for connecting the local network to the internet in order to provide internet access for field students as well as field access for remote students and tutors on the internet.
This work builds on and contributes to our ongoing research in the Enabling Remote Activity project.