DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs:
| reply to guhuna
Re: Hosting a WiFi hotspot?
Our challenge is that this is a mesh network - so it requires a specific bit of hardware and firmware. There ARE some folks hacking this OS/software into other hardware, but it's complex and not very well supported.
So - one issue may be that customers already have APs, and would like to offer access but cannot become part of the mesh network. We'll keep that in mind.
The benefits of the Meraki hardware are of course the mesh, plus security and authentication. It also promises to provide tiers of access, free bandwidth limited access which is ad supported as well as faster access which might be WPA authenticated.
The security portion is important - an open AP can be a magnet for abuse, and having logs showing who used what IP and when is very useful when the authorities come knocking. In other words, being able to prove that you, the DSL end-user who is hosting the gear was NOT the person who did the bad thing saves an awful lot of explaining. 
-Dane |
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guhuna
R.I.P Mike
Premium
join:2001-03-31
Brentwood, CA
 ·Covad Communications
·SONIC.NET
 ·PAXIO
| said by DaneJasper  : There ARE some folks hacking this OS/software into other hardware, but it's complex and not very well supported. -Dane I'd like to know a little bit more on that subject.  I have 3 different wireless A/P's I can fool around with. One linky one Netgear and one that's literally homemade that runs DD-WRT. |
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DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs:
| I might have it backwards - you can hack the Meraki to run OpenWRT, but I'm not sure if the Meraki OS will run on other hardware.
»wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Har···aki/Mini
-Dane |
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