[CUWiN] Large Installation

[Sascha Meinrath]

Hi Nick,

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Nick Inbody wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I have not read all of the list archives, so I apologize if I am 
> repeating a previous question.  Is a large scale installation of this 
> system with a single high speed internet (or other) connection point a 
> viable idea?  I am assuming the existing mesh in Champaign-Urbana is 
> currently the largest installation.

Yes this is a viable idea.  I'm not sure if the Champaign-Urbana or the 
North Lawndale mesh is larger at the moment.

> What will happen with 100 radios?  With 1000?

The routing protocols should handle large-scale implementations (in fact 
it's built for exactly that).  Of course, having not yet built a system 
this large, it's theoretical until proven.

> I have seen an example of the Tropos mesh, and they ended up backhauling 
> every fourth or fifth node to get around latency issues, and that was 
> with only 50 Tropos radios.  What is the general expectation for this 
> system?

There's been a lot of debate about latency -- lots of the problem is due 
to radio-coverage overlap (something that dynamic power-control would 
greatly improve).  As such, lots depends on the network's topology -- but 
there's no reason why a large mesh (in terms of number of nodes) shouldn't 
be possible without massive latency problems.

But again, we want to see these systems built so that we can definitively 
answer the question.

--Sascha

-- 
Sascha Meinrath
President                 *   Project Coordinator   *   Policy Analyst
Acorn Worker Collective  ***  CU Wireless Network  ***  Free Press
www.acorncollective.com   *   www.cuwireless.net    *   www.freepress.net