Matt Peterson, Bay Area Wireless Users Group

They are the educators for a technology that is not user-friendly. Spawned from the desire to build a working wireless intranet in the middle of the Black Rock desert during the Burning Man annual art rave, the Bay Area Wireless Users Group was established in September 2000 to address burning questions about wireless.

“We couldn't build an art project, an art car or a big maze, so we built a computer network as our form of expression,” said Matt Peterson, the group's founder.

Peterson started the user group as a resource for organizations interested in wireless technologies when he discovered that most vendors were unwilling to answer questions pro bono for small-scale implementations. And with the help of cohorts Tim Pozar and Cliff Skolnick — gurus in the IP and RF realms — monthly gatherings commenced.

The ad-hoc group equips people with information on topics such as security, 3G network migration and 802.11b technology for wireless LANs. Techies ranging from IT professionals and venture capitalists to entrepreneurs and ham radio operators come to the group's monthly events.

“The IEEE — developers of the 802.11b standard — could not have envisioned people stretching the technology out of their homes or conference rooms and pushing its capabilities to the max,” Peterson said.

Since its inception, the Bay Area Wireless Users Group has expanded from a few dozen attendees each month to more than 100.

“There are plenty of groups in the Bay area that focus on actually doing the networks and building them,” he said. “We're just supplying them with the momentum and the education to pull it off successfully.”