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A New Spin on the Wireless Web

From the beginning, the Internet had the whole free-form networking thing down. A packet of data could hop from one node to another all the
way to its destination. Now a band of scrappy startups has figured out a way to mimic this model – with mesh networks. The technology has the
potential to bypass the telcos and saturate the nation in cheap wireless signals.

Neil McManus Wired.com

It’s about time. If the concept takes off, it would be a real alternative to the chimera that is 3G technology, getting similar performance –
always-on, high-bandwidth communication – using hardware and software that’s here now. Corporate complexes and university campuses are
already experimenting with mesh networks.

The beauty of meshes? They’re bottom-up networks that capitalize on the rise of Wi-Fi and other open wireless technologies. They shimmer into
existence on their own, forming ad hoc out of whatever’s in range – phones, PCs, laptops, tablet computers, PDAs. Each device donates a little
processing muscle and some memory. Packets jump from one user to the next – finding the best path for the conditions at any given moment –
and finally skip to a high-bandwidth base station, which taps into the Internet.

The result: big boosts to the range and speed of wireless signals. With the help of, say, 50 meshed PCs, PDAs, and phones, a typical Wi-Fi
network with a 500-foot range can be transformed into one that extends 5 miles. In fact, the performance gains and cost savings are so great that
these systems easily undercut today’s wireless broadband service. A good telco plan typically costs $150 a month; a better mesh hookup will run
about $45.

Traditional wireless systems are constrained by the old hub-and-spoke model. In a standard Wi-Fi network, for example, all the devices in range
connect to a single transmitter. Running broadband through this kind of grid is "like the drunk at a party. He’s screaming and nobody else can
have a conversation," says Peter Stanforth, CTO of Florida-based MeshNetworks, one of the field’s leading companies. Get rid of the loud drunk,
and the gossip races across the room from speaker to speaker.

Wi-Fi can do just that. The wireless PC cards, which are flying off shelves at a rate of 1.5 million a month, can communicate with one another, peer to peer. The same goes for
Bluetooth and the handful of proprietary technologies just bubbling up.

Stanforth’s company is pushing mesh technology using Wi-Fi. The firm sells embedded chips, routers, and network access points that let wireless devices mesh. SkyPilot
Network, CoWave Networks, and Ember are chasing the same market. Small ISPs like Vista Broadband Networks are using rooftop routers to deliver telco-free high-speed
connections.

Mesh could make the wireless Web sexy again. When MeshNetworks did field trials in Orlando, engineers clocked speeds of up to 6 Mbps, faster than a cable modem. To show
off, they took visitors out on the highway for a little demo: a laptop receiving streaming video at 70 mph.

Is it possible for a networking technology to be too fabulous for its own good? Perhaps – if you’re Sprint, AT&T, or Verizon. "An issue with mesh networks is they’re potentially
really cheap, so there’s no incentive to build one if you’re a telco," says Michael Gould, a senior research engineer at SRI Consulting Business Intelligence. But as mesh
spreads, it will be hard to resist.

– Neil McManus

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/start.html?pg=8

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