Free 100Mbps bandwidth, plus free gaming

The Pretoria Wireless User Group (PTAWUG) has announced that its members can now enjoy free online radio streaming, after Antfarm officially started streaming on their wireless network, as well as free gaming, with online gaming being prioritised in the evenings.

In terms of the online radio aspect, “Antfarm officially started streaming into the PTAWUG from the beginning of July 2012, giving free access to WUG members to some of the radio stations they stream commercially. These stations include Jacaranda, Talk 702 and TuksFM and more are being negotiated,” said PTAWUG member Johan Els.

The wireless user group (WUG), which provides members with free access to their extensive wireless network, has shown strong growth over the last few years.

The PTAWUG currently has over 1499 registered nodes on its network. These nodes allow people to connect into the WUG, with some nodes serving multiple users.

“In some households we have many users active on the WUG as we welcome everyone and anyone to the WUG,” said Els.

The PTAWUG currently has 109 registered highsites that spread from Hammanskraal in the North, Noordwyk in the South, Langeberg in the West and Kameelfontein in the East. The network covers around 257 square kilometers.

“We also have high speed links into the Johannesburg WUG (JAWUG), making it one of the biggest WUGs in the world,” said Els.

Faster network

Els said that with the introduction of Ubiquiti NanoBridge equipment for backbone links within the WUG, their users are experiencing better throughput between each other.

“These links have a theoretical limit of over 100Mbps, and are being accessed over a 100Mbps Power Over Ethernet (PoE) port, so the physical limit of the links are also 100Mbps,” said Els.

“The Administrators of the WUG have implemented advance routing protocols in the form of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) with Autonomous System (AS) numbers to make redundancy and least cost routing possible,” said Els.

“PTA WUG also uses some of the most advance Quality of Service (QoS) scripts the Mikrotik platform offers to identify, mark and then priorities all traffic on the network.”

Els encouraged users interested in connecting to their network (free of charge) to visit http://www.ptawug.co.za for more information. Other WUG information is available at http://www.wug.za.net

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Tags: headline, Jacaranda, PTAWUG, Talk 702, TuksFM, WUG