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Meraki & The Last Mile
Mesh networking startup talks big, carries little box...
The NY Times profiles Meraki, a Mountain View, California, startup that says they plan to cure the infamous last mile dilemma with Wi-Fi hardware and software based on MIT’s Roofnet project. Using cheap gear ($49 for the "Meraki Mini") that features a Wi-Fi router-on-a-chip, the company is planning to help increase the signal strength of existing mesh networks -- like, say the signal strength-challenged Google network just down the road (in fact, they received seed money from Google).
"For NetEquality, Mr. Burmeister-Brown decided to try out the Meraki equipment in several neighborhoods. In the largest, consisting of about 400 apartments, five DSL lines were used to feed 100 Meraki boxes, which cover the complex with a ratio of one box to every four apartments. Each box both receives the signal and passes it along, albeit at diminished strength. For an initial investment of about $5,000, or $13 a household, the complex can offer Internet access whose operating costs work out to about $1 a household a month."
Meraki gear is still being tested by some 15,000 users in 25 countries. Once fully launched, part of Meraki's plan is to allow people to become "Micro" service providers in regions where cost is an issue, or where broadband connections are scarce. Meraki just received a $5 million cash infusion from Sequoia.
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brianiscool
join:2000-08-16
Tampa, FL

brianiscool

Member

Why waste time and money?

You're only covering a few more customers. The best method is to cover large cities.

quanta
Premium Member
join:2002-05-07
Toronto, ON

quanta

Premium Member

What's not to like?

For many communities, this will be the way to provide wireless mesh - cheap, communal, self-sufficient hardware and management systems.

The only bummer is the recurring subscription fee...Meraki should offer a standalone option so people don't have to rely on meraki.com for their captive portal management.

John Galt6
Forward, March
Premium Member
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp

John Galt6

Premium Member

Re: What's not to like?

said by quanta:

Meraki should offer a standalone option so people don't have to rely on meraki.com for their captive portal management.
This is what Sputnik does. You can by their server software and run it on your own platform so you can provide your own captive portal, authentication and subscription management.

»sputnik.com/products/sof ··· are.html

slbc
@umass.edu

slbc

Anon

We don't need more technology hype

We (www.slbc.us) have been aware of these Meraki radios for a few months. But many of us have dismissed them as unlikely to work because they are based on low power 2.4 Ghz wifi, which often won't even make it from a home to the curb. And you'd need multiple viable paths to create "mesh." It is cheap, but if doesn't work, it's expensive.
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88

Member

whats wrong with everyone

What the hell is it with all this Mesh networking? Does anyone fucking see that it eats up bandwidth like hell, Wifi has only 3 effective channels, and about 30mbit per channel real world, with p2p and streaming content, the mesh networks will rapidly come to a crawl. Each mesh node, needs a backhaul to a wired node, so cut the available bandwidth in half since each node must accept traffic, then send it out again over the same channel to the wired node, and that only has 30mbit at best, and serves 10s of other nodes, doesnt anyone see the problem?

AnonDOG
@kaballero.com

AnonDOG

Anon

Re: whats wrong with everyone

PatCat;
quote:
What the hell is it with all this Mesh networking?

You have described the basic problems with one type of mesh network. There are a lot of ways to accomplish mesh networks.

Here is a nice white paper documenting a study.
»www.freeantennas.com/Sim ··· work.pdf
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88

Member

Re: whats wrong with everyone

said by AnonDOG :

PatCat;
quote:
What the hell is it with all this Mesh networking?

You have described the basic problems with one type of mesh network. There are a lot of ways to accomplish mesh networks.

Here is a nice white paper documenting a study.
»www.freeantennas.com/Sim ··· work.pdf
And all of the popular ways have limited insertation points. You need fiber/multiple T1s/bonded DSL to each node, or out of band (not 2.4ghz) backhaul links between all nodes, preferably with directional antennas.

AnonDOG
@kaballero.com

AnonDOG

Anon

Re: whats wrong with everyone

... READ ...

The white paper... Believe it or not there are other people working this problem and they actually do understand it better than you ... or even I ... do.

-m-
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY

patcat88

Member

Re: whats wrong with everyone

That white paper shows nothing, all he did was run a computer simulation of estimated coverage and permutations of node paths. That has little to no info on congested nodes and retransmission penalty and other factors.