High Speed Internet in a Field - Computerphile

EMF camp prides itself on it's connectivity - but how do you connect hundreds of campers to high speed internet when even the phone signal is patchy? DavidC @emfNOC gave us a tour.
EMF Camp is a non-profit UK camping festival for those with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers. It happens every two years. bit.ly/C_EMF
The music mentioning Raspberry Pi was (a commenter or two have pointed out) "Dual Core" - "All the Things"
/ computerphile
/ computer_phile
This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.
Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: bit.ly/nottsco...
Computerphile is a sister project to Brady Haran's Numberphile. More at www.bradyharan.com

[@biehdc]

finally, the wireless toilet is here

[@Flowy653]

Actually, these toilets were wired.

[@fersoler]

That's the messiest network i've seen in a long time!

[@kosmonautofficial296]

Fernando Soler lol right I was thinking the same thing what would have happened if he would have broken the fiber cable from the isp when he was out there xD

[@therealpanse]

Maybe the history of the Datenklo from back in the day at CCC would be a nice video.

[@Toxicity1987]

Yeah, also next year is a new Chaos Communication Camp. Yay.

[@blenderpanzi]

You should visit the next Chaos Communication Camp in Germany! That's where the term "Datenklo" is coming from. :)

[@CatzHoek]

While certainly interesting, i would not be angry if he/they wanted to stay home over the holidays and have a few days off.

[@economixxxx]

Why does he sound like a bond villain?

[@0-Kirby-0]

Listening to him makes my throat hurt. Sounds great though

[@casperes0912]

Looks like one too with the hat and sunglasses.

[@EgoShredder]

@ ターニャ - Funny you should say that because whenever I hear someone with bad 'vocal fry', after a while I start to feel my own throat feeling sore. All in the mind I know but shows how powerful it can be, that it can trigger similar physical sensations. How others talk all day using the vocal fry technique is a mystery.

[@fredlllll]

what the heck is vocal fry?

[@EgoShredder]

It's a speech affectation that has crept into modern society, probably since mass media and communication became more global and accessible to the public.

[@ProgrammingP123]

I want to know that raspberry pi rap.

[@EXIT_FAILURE]

Dual Core - All The Things

[@MarkFunderburk]

Wow that festival in the woods has better internet than my house in the city.

[@cantfollowme-mm7rd]

Haha, Datenklo... I love it!

[@aletoledo1]

I really like the effort put in to the street junction box.

[@Dosamer]

I think I remember those guys from the Chaos communication congress. These guys are doing insane work!

[@B1G_Dave]

David you are a silent hero! We salute you!

[@LarixusSnydes]

Quite insightful. Thank you for the tour. Much appreciated :-) So much planning went into this under challenging conditions.

[@vxcvbzn]

Why is TARDIS a toilet? Wasn't it a police box? Damn chameleon circuit...

[@kegelsknight]

maybe it wasn't broken in that point of livetime.

[@LeMustache]

I scrolled down just to point it out

[@rich1051414]

All the tents are also broken tardises. All the doctors are on site to try to fix the problem.

[@Bonfi96]

They misspelled "turdis"

[@johnfrancisdoe1563]

vxcvbzn An undamaged Tardis has highly adaptive camouflage. The Dr.'s Tardis is stuck in a Police box camouflage, but not many seasons ago, we saw one camouflaged as an American diner or part of it.

[@CyclingSteve]

How fast was it? How fast was the point-to-point wireless? What kind of hardware is used to display the network status on the toilets? Why was it so difficult to run through the ducts? What usage are they seeing? How does that compare to previous years? What was the size of the network? This video prompts so many questions...

[@SouravTechLabs]

Amazing video! Just loved it!

[@ImpiantoFacile]

6:52 best rap song ever

[@DragoniteSpam]

They actually wrote "bodge" on the cooling unit. Ahh.

[@anon-sl4vp]

I find this stuff so interesting ha, could listen to this sorta stuff all day long for some reason.

[@Dreamagine1]

Why would they not use a short 19" rack inside the datacenter? Throwing a bunch of networking gear on a folding table looks horrible.

[@wallyhall]

Pride in the achievement - but no pride in the cable management! I love it!

[@zaphodb777]

If I am ever able to afford to get over to the UK, I will make sure it's an even numbered year now. 73 de AE7EC

[@johnfrancisdoe1563]

That loo looked pretty functional if squinting in the dark. Switch looked like part of the seat, rest just like random fluff from previous users and random festivals posters on the sides. I'm sure some slightly pissed bloke could get it wrong.

[@peter_smyth]

Our internet is down, must be urine in the switch.

[@peter_smyth]

*insert joke about I-pee addresses*

[@moijuste8513]

This guys are network gods !

[@althaz]

Oh, wrong sort of field. Nevermind, still interesting :).

[@_nikeee]

Were you at CCCamp 2019? It's like EMD, but larger.

[@mindgame112]

The cable management makes me super nervous in that data centre

[@johnfrancisdoe1563]

Sjoerd Redeker Perfectly fine for a small setup. Won't get intractably tangled in the very few years (weeks actually) before the whole thing is torn up and returned to equipment providers.

[@peter_smyth]

What cable management?

[@Ktulu789]

I wonder if they came back in 2020 to use it again...

[@kmac499]

Datenklo or BitBog in english, where you can do you no doubt do a, wait forit. A data dump. Be interesting to see a miltary set up for non classified stuff in a field.

[@pierreabbat6157]

Sounds like you got all your ducts in a row! Btw, I heard "Dartenklo" at first and couldn't make sense of it.

[@davidc32346]

Anyone interested in more technical details, our presentations are linked here: github.com/emfcamp/emfnoc#presentations But I think this video gives a much better introduction, thanks Sean!

[@animyrch]

The whole time, I expected him to show another piece of equipment and say "These go to 11".

[@rmp5s]

I was like, "is he really saying 'docking toilet'?...yup...sure is." lol Bonus points for "Tardis".

[@bjornroesbeke]

I knew i recognized those status poles!

[@Nadia1989]

Someone tidy that mess at 4:24 !!!

[@jwelda1]

A lot of effort to make sure people don’t actually have to talk to each other

[@ElectromagneticField]

If you want more detail about the network and other infrastructure at EMF, you can see the infrastructure review talk we gave at EMF2018 here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHvWmYifgpakabc

[@philchip]

Hope he has his prescription SPF 9001 sunscreen on

[@TheHarriJames]

Nice

[@Valansch]

But: why?

[@KamiKagutsuchi]

A HIGH SPEED INTERNET CONNECTION NED! IN AN OPEN FIELD NED!

[@picobyte]

It looks suspiciously much like Campzone 😎

[@MrAxelx19]

Yes it does!

[@Zadster]

How ironic is it that the event is called Electromagnetic Field, but yet has poor / zero radio connectivity? Hundreds of thousands of pounds of IP routing hardware and software, but no sign of a portable lattice mast with a repeater to bounce signals over the trees to mobile infrastructure. I guess it gets to the point where you have a really good shiny gigabit hammer, and everything looks like a nail.

[@flange0r]

EMF2018 had its own (experimental) licensed GSM network actually. And full onsite DECT phone network. To go with the ubiquitous wifi...

[@johnfrancisdoe1563]

Will Hargrave So no cooperation with a vendor to do a live demo of 5G early deployment (I expect to have heard otherwise from that vendor).

[@marksteward]

There was a 5G test mast just a hill or two away, but I don't think they'd want 2500 random hackers playing with it

[@johnfrancisdoe1563]

ms7821 Really. It would have been a great beta test before making it part of the must-not-fail public network.

[@flange0r]

This sounds like a great project for a village/attendee to do! It wouldn't be part of core infrastructure.

[@aseq2]

Say 'Datenklo' one more time! I double dare you!

[@nickhughes5777]

+1 for network engineers that PMSL at 1:16

[@DougGrinbergs]

A bummer if you really need to go...

[@drgr33nUK]

I had this idea years ago :( should have ran with it.

[@ThatManMelvin]

Ive been to a similar field about 6 years ago which had 10Gb network running the fiber cables through the trees surrounding the field. Very close to this. Not a very new idea

[@drgr33nUK]

@MichaelKingsfordGray I've corrected it just for you :)

[@Lion_McLionhead]

No-one outside British sanitary standards will be using those switches

[@neddyladdy]

Why do people who are camping need, or even want internet ?

[@fluffyfloof9267]

TARDIS! LOL

[@shigwig9751]

Yet

[@TheDefpom]

I run a couple of high power wifi networks from my motorhome using 4G which is used for public access at events.

[@sionatube]

Datenklo. The accent was so weird I did not understand it right away xD"

[@klayed]

but can it bake cookies ???

[@NicholasMarkovich]

one month late

[@themoribundapathetic4530]

Noc-10, anyone?

[@procactus9109]

Im glad he stopped talking at the end of the end

[@shu172]

It's a "shitty solution" which works very well ;-)

[@chaoswebz]

tardis

[@frognik79]

According to the last video this doesn't exist.

[@jamie_ar]

It's been a while since we had anything "new" on Computerphile, hopefully the quality of the content increases again soon. I don't really care about people knitting blankets or delivering WiFi to tents in a field.

[@SmevMev]

I don't mind these sorts of videos per se, but (at least to me), they're basically just streams of tech jargon, rather than a clear explanation of what was actually done, so unless you're already very familiar with implementing stuff like this, you're not going to learn anything or understand any better, after having watched the video, making them a bit of an empty experience.

[@jamie_ar]

I agree. I think I just got so used to the more in-depth, technical videos that these ones just seem so bland and boring. Just because technology or computers are being used to do something doesn't mean it warrants a video on the subject.

[@Zadster]

These ARE in-depth technical videos. From my point of view, all the high-level hand waving dumbed down basioc stuff is boring, and the details about how unusual hardware level systems are connected together is much more interesting. You can't have every video aimed at the beginner level, you have to provide content for people who are already a few rungs up the technical ladder. A channel like this is never going to be able to please everyone all the time, so please appreciate that whatever level you are, there will be content that simply isn't aimed at you.

[@SmevMev]

@@Zadster It's not in-depth though, it's just a sequential list of acronyms and which boxes are connected to which other boxes. For example, he mentions they were happy to get fibre through the ducts, because they weren't sure they would - why was that a challenge and how did they manage it, in the end? He talks about the LEDs reacting to broadcast messages - did that require any programming? Particular broadcast protocols? What even are the different lighting patterns it displays? This all seems like obvious stuff they could have expanded on, shown code for, discussed hardware specs, etc. It's the computational equivalent of a cooking show where they list the ingredients, then basically skip the quantities and method, going straight to the finished cake.

[@jamie_ar]

"You can't have every video aimed at the beginner level" That's what I'd consider this video to be though, lol.

[@Galileocrafter]

#cablegore

[@judgeomega]

new definition of shitty internet

[@BigBossBilly]

I'm sorry, but that hat is just so bad.

[@Super02Roblox]

Second