[liberationtech] Mesh Networks?

[elham gheytanchi]

if that is the case, why is the state department funding mesh networks in Afghanistan? (reported in the NY times)? FabFi is expanding its work:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/06/12/world/20110612-INTERNET-ss-3.html 
 
best,
elham



Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:26:46 -0700
From: steveweis at gmail.com
To: companys at stanford.edu
CC: liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu
Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Mesh Networks?


My experience using MIT's roofnet mesh network was generally poor. They had about 100 nodes around Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here's an old snapshot of geographic coverage and connectivity: http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/doku.php?id=map 


The roofnet team went on to found Meraki and tried to build community WiFi in San Francisco: http://meraki.com/press-releases/2007/03/04/meraki-networks-selects-san-francisco/. They had 800 Wifi hotspots around the city. I never personally used one, but you used to see their "Free the net" networks everywhere. As of 2009, they stopped expanding their network. I don't know what happened to it, but didn't see any mention on their website anymore. I think they have shifted away from mesh networking to focus on network management products.


Portland had a similar network to roofnet called NetEquality. It doesn't look like they even have a webpage anymore. OLPC XS was supposed to use mesh networking: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_Server. That also went nowhere.



I think WiFi-based mesh networking is difficult because you need many nodes to cover even a small geographic area. It also needs enough egress bandwidth to support regular usage and a means of preventing someone from swamping the network. None of these examples were unauthorized. They would have been trivial to corrupt or disable by someone motivated to shut them down.

I don't know if this is relevant to OpenMesh. They are asking for "high end wirelesss engineers that understand how to change firmware for wireless devices". That could mean a lot of things.


On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 8:06 AM, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu> wrote:

What do you all think?  Will mesh networks work?  
Shervin Pishevar is a really smart guy, so if anyone can help organize this effectively, it is he. 
But mesh nets have been around for a while and never taken off, so just wondering what the technical hurdles are.


_______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/attachments/20110617/8354f9f0/attachment.html>