Comments on: New Open-Mesh Routers

By: wirelessworlds

wirelessworlds — Sun, 31 May 2009 07:26:24 +0000

all low end radios produce the same low distance, need 50 radios to cover 1 block type of approach. Does this perform ? NOPE and when the leaves start to come out the indoor to outdoor fails. Why ?

Well first not all gear , software or units are the same. We build our own and have for almost 5 years now just because of the issues listed. WiFi is great for last mile distribution, but fails miserably providing back hauls on top of the wireless, in noisy areas.

As broadband world wide expands so will the noise and interference. We use wi/mesh for last foot applications , not last mile. Can it be done, of course. I have wifi shots that have 18 miles plus, but this is in rural america versus downtown.

We use multiple frequencies to solve our issues. Since we can use 900 MHz, and 5 GHz, we use the NLOS to interconnect to radios thru walls, while the 5 GHz is used for backhauls, and interconnects.

When building a real mesh network, relying on one product or frequency can mean short life for your wireless network, no matter how well planned or deployed.

The GotWifi Cowboy
http://wirelessworlds.multiply.com

By: iptech

iptech — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:39:32 +0000

Hello,
I have a couple of Meraki meshes deployed in the US at this time and they appear to be working alright, but I am not really impressed with them. I have found that the range of the outdoor units is not even close to the advertised range especially when the trees leaf out in the spring and block signals. I have one deployed in an apartment complex and another deployed for a small town.

I am also looking at revamping an existing city’s wireless network that was deployed around 8 years ago with all B equipment. I would like to leave the existing B network in place but be able to repeat the signal with G (or even N) equipment since all of the old equipment was not deployed as a Mesh and therefore each has a wired connection. Also the roof rights in the downtown area would be very hard to secure again since there were no agreements put in place during the initial install. I do like the idea of a low cost mesh solution which was why I tried the Meraki equipment. The issue is I want to make it work with my Radius server and another third party platform for billing. The Meraki won’t do this unless you use the Service Provider version which requires you to buy a minimum of 50 units.

Does anyone have any experience with deploying the any of the other mesh networks mentioned here? I would like to find a solution that could blanket at least a 50 square block area and possibly further for a reasonable cost since there will be no payback on this until the network is up and running. BTW, the existing network covers a 20 square block area as of now and is not only used by the people, but is also used by the City for Police, Firefighter and Ambulance connections.

One other thing, I have deployed a few routers loaded with DD-WRT in order to repeat the existing Meraki and city networks and I like the stability and ease of use of these platform. I am by no means an expert, but I would like to find something that was as stable as those platforms. I like the idea of a platform that gives you actual throughput (16M) instead of lying to you about the 45M through put they promise to deliver, but never do.

Thank you

By: RaduJohn

RaduJohn — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:10:42 +0000

Every node can support only 7 users at the same time to share the 54 Mbps of the node , or 35 VOIP concurrent users.
Of course I will need a lot of nodes.:)

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:50:15 +0000

I think it would work just fine, but you’d need a lot of nodes! This would be the same for any wireless application.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:49:48 +0000

I would recommend using Open Mesh on Ubiquiti hardware. OM gives you the mesh and control panel and Ubiquiti has really powerful hardware that will cover large distances.

By: RaduJohn

RaduJohn — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:04:26 +0000

I want to do the same … a city wide WISP. I’m in Eastern Europe and the buildings in town are concrete and iron. And it is a hill geography.
Anybody has any idea how will OpenMesh work in these situations ?

Respectfully, Radu John

By: Bertrand

Bertrand — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:49:21 +0000

Hi All,

I’m looking for a solution to deploy a City wide Wifi WISP in Central Africa. The design goal is to build a very cheap and easy to maintain network so as to offer very aggressive price tag ($10/month for unlimited access).
1) Wish solution will you recommend : Meraki? Open Mesh? ArrowSpan? LinkBee? Ubiquiti?…
2) Can anyone help with a sample WISP excel business model / plan ?

Thanks

By: Mark Stang

Mark Stang — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:21:04 +0000

Hi,
I posted earlier, about the lock-ups. They seem to have gone away. Open-mesh sent out an e-mail advising me of the upgrade and they have stopped locking-up.

By: Zac

Zac — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:24:35 +0000

I purchased three of these mr3201a routers and have deployed them in a test hotspot network, they worked flawlessly. I have since bought 40 more and am going to use them in hostspots….We are going to be buying approximately 300 more over the next few months. I recommend this product highly..We are going to be utilizing the wifi-cpa enterprise server for management.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:32:28 +0000

Vladimir,

I have no clue, I think you would have to contact Meraki like they request you do.