Sir Attenborough is one of the best known broadcasters. He worked for the BBC. In April 2006, for his 80th birthday the public was asked to vote on their favorite moments of his. This video was rated number one. It is an incredibly profound view of our world.

Through the course of visiting Black Rock City and experiencing Burning Man and all its marvels one inevitably comes up with ideas for contribution ideas. I've had plenty; and although very few of them ever come into fruition, they're nice to share because the ideas get people thinking. Around early August last year I starting piecing together, in my mind, what it would take to get a telephone system around black rock: The Black Rock City Telephone Company (BRCTC).

The infrastructure would provide the following features.

• Playa-wide telephone coverage
• On-playa and off-Playa digital directory
• Voice mail
• Operator services (dial 0)
• Access to playa info (dial 411)
• VOIP services to people with their own phone

The real value of the BRCTC is the ability for people to connect directly to telephone infrastructure. They could bring their own IP phone and be granted access to all the BRCTC services. We could have documentation available online so that they would know exactly what they'd need to bring and when they got there we could help them get set up.

Equipment for each of the locations would include the following.

• Weatherproof enclosures
• Replenishing power supply
• IP Phone
• Wireless access point

Ideally, each of the kiosk locations would need to have an autonomous energy source maybe with a solar panel and a marine battery. I considered using swappable power sources, allowing one battery to charge while the other was consumed but I think the real strength of this project is the infrastructure itself. Resources initially would focus on supporting the WAP locations but would later be focused on weaned to focus on the Central Office. If that is in place, somehow, power for the phones (and even the WAPs) themselves will come.

The first phase of the project would include covering a reasonable amount of the playa with as little equipment as possible. There's a minimum coverage that needs to occur. This would be a public network so we'd want the customers to actually be able to talk to other parts of the playa. An infrastructure with one phone would be much less attractive than an infrastructure that could span the playa. On the other hand, covering too much of the playa on the first phase could make the project unmanageable.

The locations I've chosen would each location was chosen to be 1000' father than the previous location.

Location 0 (1000') [Central office]
The central office would be wherever my camp was located. This is where the server handling the VOIP services would be located.

Location 1 (2000') [4:00@Esplanade]
I chose locations on the esplanade for access points locations because they're reasonable points to radiate radio signals for people with IP phones to connect to the network. A location a few streets back would probably provide optimum coverage area but locations on the esplanade is the ideal place for positioning stationary phones. The locations is the same distance from center camp as from 2:00.

Location 2 (3000') [Center camp]
Playa info is already an invaluable resource. Connecting it with the phone system is critical to getting the phone system accepted.

Location 3 (4000') [The man]
Originally I considered locating a phone behind the man. I realize now that this is probably a terrible idea.

Location 4 (5000') [8:00@Esplanade]
This location is positioned where it is for the same reason location 2 is where it is.

The CO would consist of the following items.

• A very cheap, very low power server running asterisk.
• Replenishing power supply
• Wireless Router

The server I mention isn't easy to find. I've found a couple resources who specialize in computers with low power but one isn't cheap and the other doesn't sell to consumers. The power source would be different from the other locations because the server would drain considerably more power. This would probably require more solar cells, more batteries, etc.

I've gone back and forth about whether this should use VOIP or use a technology that would allow them to use their existing cell phones. The more I think about it the more I realize that VOIP phones are the answer. Cell phones are a mess. I have no idea how to set up something that would work like a cell tower. Even if I could find the hardware the documentation would probably be as obscure as that for the phones themselves. Using VOIP allows us to set up an infrastructure that could be used for other things. Or, better yet, make use of other networks that could help span the playa. Phone prices are dropping and the functionality of an infrastructure to support them is relatively transparent.

If this were to happen I'd want to field test it at least a couple times before I brought it on the playa. Toast and Decom SF would be likely test sites.

Phew, that was a mouth full. I have ideas for the directory but that probably deserves another post.

The Burning Man sites have a plethora of resources, here are some that are particularly useful for this project.

• Black Rock City 2005 map
• Black Playa info
• Black Playanet
• Burning Man Earth

See also:   My dome at Burning Man   Burning man retrospective