Excuse me for being smug, but I'm writing this outside, in the sunshine, with a cup of espresso and a pastry propped on my laptop. I was just sent an email by Guardian Online commissioning this piece. Despite the fact that my internet connection is 30 yards away, I picked it up, finished my Instant Messenger conversation, minimised the live cricket score window on my browser, and set to work.

How is this possible? Well, as you've no doubt twigged from the surrounding articles, I'm the happy user of an 802.11b wireless internet connection between my office, and the surrounding street. As a writer, with no need to be anywhere but at the end of an internet connection, an email address and a mobile phone number, it's a revolutionary step.

But the wondrous convenience of writing in a place designed to bring me regular blasts of caffeine is really nothing compared to the serendipitous meetings it has created: for as the network I set up is free for all to use, and somewhat advertised on the web, this cafe has seen a steady stream of like-minded technology enthusiasts, bloggers, and geared-up layabouts united in the joyous realisation that they never need go to the office again. A correctly enabled laptop, and a coffee addiction later, your first delivery of email over a community wireless network seems to come with angelic music and a parting of the clouds.

Setting up a wireless access point for your street is less trouble than you might think. It requires an old PC (a 486 or better, so I mean "really" old), a couple of network cards - one wireless - and some patience. The Consume.net people can show you how, as can the many community wireless organisations around the world.

I had some old equipment hanging around, and it's great to put it to some use. All I then had to do was point the antenna out of the window in the direction of a comfortable spot, drop leaflets through the doors of my neighbours and register myself on the Consume database.

It was from the Consume database that I had my first visitor. Seeing a flickering light on my network hub, I knew someone was using it. It was Doc Searls, co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto and top US blogger, who is in Britain for a few days. "The Revolution is on, People!" he was to write later that day, "I haven't felt this jazzed and with-it since the Sixties."

Since then, he and many others have used the spare bandwidth on my internet connection, and I've drunk plenty of coffee. In fact, with the caffeine, the only thing wired around here is me.