[liberationtech] Mesh Networks?

[Steve Weis]

I'm not dismissing mesh networks in general. I was specifically talking
about examples of municipal WiFi mesh networks like Rooftnet and Meraki. The
article you linked to is in reference to FabFi, which is an ad hoc
long-range radio network connecting to local meshes. My point was that
extending a local WiFi mesh to cover a large area (e.g. Kabul or Nairobi) is
difficult in practice. Other technologies might be better suited.

Just as a point of reference, FabFi's Nairobi installation serves 13 homes
and has only been able to operate at a peak of 1Mbps, which is 20% of their
capacity [1]. They averaged about 4GB of total traffic a day during April.
They are experiencing frequent outages as of a couple months ago [2]. That's
not surprising since power and network connectivity can be intermittent in
Nairobi.

[1] http://fabfiblog.fabfolk.com/2011/04/hump-bringing-it-all-together.html
[2] http://fabfiblog.fabfolk.com/2011/03/banwidth-crisis.html


On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 12:34 PM, elham gheytanchi <elhamucla at hotmail.com>wrote:

>  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
>
>
>
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