[LINK] mesh broadband

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Hi all,

Maybe peer-to-peer, or Mesh Broadband, may be the way
to go for an economical, 'last mile plus 10 more yards'
domestic broadband solution ..

Wireless Internet for All, Without the Towers
R. STROSS, Feb 4 2007, www.nytimes.com <snip>

THESE still are early days for the Internet, globally speaking. One 
billion people online; five billion to go.

The next billion to be connected are living in homes that are physically 
close to an Internet gateway. They await a solution to the famous “last 
mile” problem: extending affordable broadband service to each person’s 
doorstep ..

The last mile for households with no or slow connections may be provided 
by radio signals sent out by transmitters perched atop street lights, as 
hundreds of cities have rolled out municipal Wi-Fi networks, or are in 
the process of doing so.

If you’re sitting with your laptop at an outside cafe, you’ll be happy 
with the service. But if you happen to be at home, you realize that 
service to the doorstep is not enough: you still need to buy equipment to 
bolster the signal and solve the “last mile plus 10 more yards” problem — 
that is, getting coverage indoors.

WiMax, which will be a high-power version of the tower approach, comes in 
two flavors: mobile, which has not yet been certified, and fixed, which 
is theoretically well suited for residential deployment. Unfortunately, 
it’s pricey. Peter Bell, a research analyst at TeleGeography Research in 
Washington, said fixed WiMax would not be able to compete against cable 
and DSL service: “It makes more economic sense in semirural areas that 
have no broadband coverage.”

An intriguingly inexpensive alternative has appeared: a Wi-Fi network 
that is not top-down but rather ground-level, peer-to-peer. 

It relies not on $3,500 radio transmitters perched on street lamps by 
professional installers but instead on $50 boxes that serve, depending 
upon population density, more than one household and can be installed by 
anyone with the ease of plugging in a toaster. 

Meraki Networks, a 15-employee start-up in Mountain View, Calif., has 
been field-testing Wi-Fi boxes that offer the prospect of providing an 
extremely inexpensive solution to the “last 10 yards” problem ..

The company equips its boxes with software that maintains a “mesh 
network,” which dynamically reroutes signals as boxes are added or 
unplugged, and as environmental conditions that affect network 
performance fluctuate moment to moment.

At this time last year, two of Meraki’s co-founders — Sanjit Biswas and 
John Bicket — were still Ph.D. students at M.I.T., pursuing academic 
research on wireless mesh networks <snip> In short order, Google and then 
Sequoia Capital, one of Google’s original venture capital backers, 
invested in Meraki.

Meraki “mini,” as the company calls its basic product for the home, 
contains a Wi-Fi router-on-a-chip, and is cheap enough today to be 
included in a box that sells for $49. 

The fact that 200 million Wi-Fi chips will be manufactured this year 
leads to economies of scale that will drive down the price of extremely 
intelligent network equipment. Meraki’s products are still being tested, 
but word-of-mouth has attracted 15,000 users in 25 countries.

One early adopter was Michael Burmeister-Brown, a director of 
NetEquality, a nonprofit in Portland, Ore., that provides free Internet 
access to low-income neighborhoods. 

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. 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. 

The bandwidth can match DSL service, but here it is throttled down a bit 
to deter bandwidth-hogging downloads. Nonetheless, Mr. Burmeister-Brown 
says everyone is able to enjoy Web browsing with what he describes 
as “really snappy response.” The sharing of signals among neighbors does 
not compromise privacy if standard Wi-Fi security protocols are switched 
on.

Meraki’s products are not yet for sale, and its networks have not been 
tested with extensive deployment across a large city. Nonetheless, the 
intrinsic advantages of its grass-roots approach, with next-to-nothing 
expenditures for both equipment and operations, are impossible to ignore.

Meraki does not wish to go into the Internet service provider business 
itself, but it aspires to equip any interested nontechnical person to 
become a “micro” service provider for his or her local community. If the 
provider wishes to use advertising to cover costs rather than charge an 
access fee, little would be needed in order to cover the minimal outlays 
for equipment and operations.

This low-cost network model offers the prospect of broadband service 
reaching inside many more households. One billion and one. One billion 
and two. One billion and three ... 
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