[Commotion-discuss] Mesh Networks vs Spoke Hub-Spoke Networks in Developing Countries

Fri Oct 25 01:45:13 UTC 2013

To this great discussion, I'll add one slightly more obscure point: In
my experience speaking with people who have next to no experience with
wireless networking, there's something about mesh that makes intuitive
sense. I think it's that the flexibility makes it easier to align with
the social networks we experience in our daily lives.

If you tell people there will be one leader and anyone who wants to say
anything to anyone else has to pass a message through the leader, that
doesn't sound very appealing. On the other hand, if you say that anyone
can speak to anyone else as long as we take turns, can see each other,
and don't talk too loudly, that seems right.

So, yes, mesh networking has some added technical overhead, but as a
digital expression of the world we want, it's a lot more appealing than
hub-and-spoke.

On 10/23/13 7:27 PM, Ben West wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I also had the fortune to chat with Trevor about his adventures in distant
> lands, and yes, we ended up more or less agreeing on each others' opinions
> of mesh topology vs. more traditional hub & spoke networks.  Indeed, I'm
> keen on wireless meshes, but specifically on partitioned meshes that span
> multiple channels and/or bands to ensure realistic bandwidth availability.
> Trevor has a strong need to set up reliable networks quickly, using
> available, off-the-shelf equipment, with handy documentation.
> 
> The IS4CWN summits, and the community mesh movement at large, have made
> fantastic progress towards this end, but there is still work to do to win
> over the Trevors and the Matt Rantanens of the world that they can find
> benefit in using mesh.  From a high level, promoting interoperability
> between different meshing schemes, a al the goals of the Interop group at
> http://interop.wlan-si.net/ would definitely help reduce the learning curve
> for mesh.  Also, the fact that Trevor came to speak at the summit shows
> this progress is under way.
> 
> As for solar power, it was Danny Iland from USCB who gave a presentation in
> Berlin about hyper-precise power measurements and solar / battery size
> estimation.  If you don't have it, I can share Danny's email address
> off-list (in consideration of privacy).
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Seamus Tuohy <s2e at opentechinstitute.org>wrote:
> 
>> Hey Dan (and all),
>>
>> Please excuse the delay, and the hastiness of this response. I have not
>> had much time to sit down to give a comprehensive reply to this
>> questions, but this deserves a response. As, I only have a dozen or so
>> minutes to write this, I want to point out that it only represents my
>> personal views and has not been vetted by the full team... or really any
>> of them.
>>
>> See inline:
>>
>> On 10/21/2013 03:19 PM, Daniel Hastings wrote:
>>> Just stumbeled across this on the Open ITP Blog:
>>> https://openitp.org/mesh-networks/trevor-ellermann-on-mesh-networks.html
>>>
>>> I am curious to know the argument some of you pro-mesh people out there
>>> might have against Trevor's argument of Mesh networks are not the most
>>> suitable network infrastructure for the developing world.
>>>
>>
>> I actually had the good fortune of having a few conversations with
>> Trevor after that article went live. While I will comment more below I
>> think it really comes down to the deployment model, and the current
>> state of networking education.
>>
>> Trevor has worked extensively with communities to provide internet
>> connectivity with limited overall access to unfiltered/any internet and
>> to train the individuals there on how to maintain those networks. As
>> such, if any part of the network goes down it is easy to pinpoint the
>> problem. This makes it far easier to manage a network for a user who
>> only has the basic networking knowledge taught to them (having spoken to
>> Trevor I believe that it was surely a very high quality and
>> comprehensive set of training they received). It also means that if the
>> network manager is not around to, or is unwilling to provide
>> connectivity to other surrounding areas those areas have no choice but
>> to find a "Trevor" to assist them, or go without.
>>
>> He is right in many ways, but I personally believe that the challenge we
>> must take on is to make the construction, management, and diagnosis of
>> mesh networks more easily understood and taken on by individuals so that
>> the network can easily spread where it is needed. I think that
>> optimizing a network for performance should also includes creating
>> community guidelines about usage and educating members on how to
>> identify the health of their part of the network and tune their node
>> accordingly. But, that still requires far, far, clearer, more powerful
>> tools and much more education material to make possible. That is what we
>> are doing with the Commotion project.
>>
>> Really, my argument is not a disagreement with the thoughts Trevor has.
>> It is a completely different intervention style based upon capacity and
>> the power of the network-manager. This planet has yet to see capable
>> individuals flocking to provide connectivity to those in need. It is far
>> too profitable to control avenues of communication, and far to hard to
>> gain the expertise and time needed to build and maintain networks at
>> large scale (though luckily it is getting cheaper to do). There are
>> groups of amazing technologists, like Trevor, who are doing amazing work
>> providing managed networks and the education to maintain them.  But, the
>> disparity is to great, and the locations to many to have people like
>> Trevor go out to all the communities that need him.
>>
>> For these, and many other reasons, we have focused on developing tools
>> and educational materials that allow a community to assess their needs
>> and create the basic connectivity that they are lacking. We feel that
>> when a Trevor is not available, mesh networking has the best chance for
>> providing an infrastructure that will be able to grow as a community
>> needs it to grow. (I keep saying me because I have picked up much of
>> this philosophy from other members of OTI and the Commotion team, but I
>> should point out again that this quick overview only represents my
>> personal views on this project.)
>>
>>> He seems to think that mesh is good in places where it can be constantly
>>> maintained.  I would argue that in our situation since we are not a large
>>> network (4-6 nodes) maintenance is not as much of an issue.
>>>
>>> However, I can certainly understand his argument .  We do have one node
>>> that is not the easiest to reach (in a guard tower which means a lot of
>>> climbing and trying not wake sleeping guards) but for remote regions with
>>> many different nodes in a variety of locations troubleshooting may be a
>>> problem.
>>>
>>
>> Maintenance is such a hard problem for long standing networks. Simply
>> looking at the node-maps of various community wireless projects with an
>> eye to the version field of unconnected nodes will show dozens, if not
>> hundreds, of forgotten, unreachable, or otherwise unmaintainable nodes.
>> I have heard from many that it is just not worth the time unless they
>> start interfering with the network. Some of these projects are mesh,
>> some are managed. A house changes ownership or a store changes
>> management and all of a sudden a roof is off limits or an ethernet cable
>> unplugged without any real recourse. I think that funkfeuer and guifi
>> might actually have people sign contracts when they offer their roof for
>> usage to have some legal looking paper to hopefully convince the new
>> owners to at least let them reclaim the hardware.
>>
>> But all that is to say that maintainance is both a hardware/software
>> problem, as well as a education and community engagement problem. The
>> Commotion project has put out, and is continuing to develop a good deal
>> of materials on both the actual mounting of a node
>>
>> https://commotionwireless.net/docs/cck/building-mounting/prep-install-rooftop-nodes
>> but, also in the outreach and planning stages that will allow
>> communities to build the human infrastructure that will support
>> long-term maintenance. It is a much harder lift but, by documenting
>> working community models for maintaining communications infrastructure
>> over time it creates a more resilient human network to support a
>> deployed network. https://commotionwireless.net/docs/cck (keep an eye
>> out for the next set of planning guides which will have more of this
>> focus in them.)
>>
>>> He also mentions the issue of power.  I've always wanted to play with the
>>> idea of solar powering a pico station. Has anyone seen this been done
>>> before? We have plenty of sun in Africa and far too many unreliable
>>> generators.
>>>
>>
>> There was a person at IS4CWN who was doing power measurements on a
>> pico-station to make buying the right solar panel/batteries easier.  I
>> am almost sure I have seen it working before as well. The Southern
>> California Tribal Digita Village
>> (
>> http://www.newamerica.net/files/New_Media_Technology_and_Internet_Use_in_Indian_Country.pdf
>> )
>> runs 5 backbone nodes on mountain-tops off of solar arrays. It is a much
>> more solid infrastructure, but something to look to for large long-term
>> solar networks.
>>
>>> I am really intrigued to hear opinions about this argument especially of
>>> those who have worked with both types of networks or certainly have more
>>> knowledge on the subject.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>
>>
>> Hope that helps,
>>
>> s2e
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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