[CWN-Summit] Seeking advice on low-cost mesh node wifi in St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Stelios Valavanis stel at onshore.com
Tue Nov 18 16:21:23 CST 2008


you also said there were about 600 internet connections. so that's almost 1 
internet connection for every 10 nodes. and you didn't need to do any mesh?

On Tuesday 18 November 2008 3:38:22 pm Ramon Roca wrote:
> No, I would say that currently the most popular "backhaul system" is
> running RouterOS on multiple-radio systems. On linksys/buffalos, at the
> time that they were deployed, was often alchemy or dd-wrt, but that was
> a long time ago, today would be very rare such deployment, even with
> openwrt. Openwrt with Alix looks to me like is becoming a nice option,
> we'll see.
> And yes, the ptp links are primarily WDS links with dedicated radios (no
> other links at the same radio), although in some cases you could see
> also ap/client links. For performance what's more important is to have
> the radios dedicated for this job rather than if is ap/client or WDS.
>
> En/na Stelios Valavanis ha escrit:
> > well i guess you run openwrt (what i mean by "system") on most of these
> > since you can't run cuwin on linksys and buffalo. how are the radios
> > linking up to the p-p backhauls? are you using WDS?
> >
> > On Tuesday 18 November 2008 3:10:28 pm Ramon Roca wrote:
> >> You have some statistics on the box at the left.
> >> Currently I do see 603 point to point links, which I assume is what you
> >> mean by backhaul. Those are often radio links with dedicated radios.
> >> AP/client links are often links to CPEs.
> >> What do you mean by "system", could you be more specific?
> >> If you mean a specific kind of hardware, from WRT54G, Buffalo to
> >> Routerboards, Alix are getting popular now.
> >> As a CPE primarily was WRT54G/Buffalo, now Nanostations are also getting
> >> popular.
> >> As firmwares, same history...
> >> No single "system".
> >> You know, those things change over time, new "systems" will be made
> >> available in the future, and hopefully suitable for building open
> >> networks. The user choose the role/system he likes, and then provides
> >> that information into the platform thus get provisioned of his
> >> configuration.
> >>
> >> En/na Stelios Valavanis ha escrit:
> >>> i mean the wireless 5000 node part. what system is on those radios? and
> >>> how many backhaul lines are there?
> >>>
> >>> On Tuesday 18 November 2008 2:02:58 pm Ramon Roca wrote:
> >>>> When I said platform, I mean that we do use a suite of tools, not only
> >>>> a firmware family, routing protocol or so (which imho cuwin is about,
> >>>> my apologies if I'm wrong), we trend to support many, as well as
> >>>> provisioning other features.
> >>>> The platform is about sevelal things like a module for drupal which
> >>>> includes GIS tools, network and backbone planning, ip provisioning,
> >>>> bandwith/latency monitorizing, up to the self-configuration of the
> >>>> network devices for many firmwares/hardware (RouterOS, dd-wrt,
> >>>> openwrt....) and some other pieces. Since also includes a CMS, also
> >>>> provides a collaboration space (news, wiki, forums...). That is the
> >>>> "standard" things to provide user oriented tools "web 2.0 alike", plus
> >>>> extending the same concept to the communications infrastructure.
> >>>>
> >>>> Since is technology agnostic, doesn't rely on a single technology, is
> >>>> your choice if you want to play with experimental things or deploy a
> >>>> stable mesh combining infrastructure mode.
> >>>>
> >>>> The platform have been developed to meet our local needs, but last
> >>>> year have been reworked to allow support for any deployment worldwide
> >>>> and a distributed architecture. We're in the hope that by combining
> >>>> such kind of platforms with all the emerging technology and wider
> >>>> community support, that would revert in enhancing the platform itself.
> >>>>
> >>>> It can run either hosted by reusing our already parametrized servers
> >>>> (much easier - fast start) or take the software and setup a new LAMP
> >>>> server to run it, which could mean that you need some previous
> >>>> training since is about setting up an application, or build the server
> >>>> later on....
> >>>>
> >>>> As an example, my node with the map, connections, real time
> >>>> information, etc...
> >>>> http://guifi.net/en/elserrat
> >>>> At the devices list, the "unsolclic" column gives you the
> >>>> configuration of the firmware used at the node, etc, etc...
> >>>>
> >>>> A wider view of the network over a map:
> >>>> http://guifi.net/en/node/2413/view/map
> >>>>
> >>>> En/na Stelios Valavanis ha escrit:
> >>>>> wow what are you using? cuwin? how many backhaul connections for 5000
> >>>>> nodes?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Tuesday 18 November 2008 12:54:43 pm Ramon Roca wrote:
> >>>>>> The platform we've built at guifi.net is addressed to many of the
> >>>>>> things what you are asking for, which is about combining several
> >>>>>> features (wide hardware/firmware support, oriented to
> >>>>>> coommunity/self-managed but reliable open networks including
> >>>>>> residential access, monitored, scalable, provisioning for proxys,
> >>>>>> open source, etc...).
> >>>>>> We're running it here for a +5,000 nodes / +6,000 kms.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> We can talk deeper if you are interested.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> En/na Ben West ha escrit:
> >>>>>>> Hello all,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I should first apologize if I am posing an oft-asked question, but
> >>>>>>> I find myself at an impasse, even after 2+ years of casual research
> >>>>>>> and spectatorship in the Mesh Node Wifi movement (not to mention
> >>>>>>> twice attending the CWN conference).  The diversity of participants
> >>>>>>> in Mesh Node Wifi is awesome, but it can make feasibility research
> >>>>>>> difficult.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I work/volunteer at an activist community center (CAMP,
> >>>>>>> stlcamp.org) in south St. Louis, and a local foundation just put
> >>>>>>> out an open call for proposals for investing a substantial sum into
> >>>>>>> community revitalization projects in the neighborhood.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> These 2 articles about an $8500 deployment of Meraki devices along
> >>>>>>> a 2mile corridor in Kentucky motivated me to pitch a similar idea
> >>>>>>> for this St. Louis neighborhood:
> >>>>>>> http://www.govtech.com/gt/377232?topic=117699
> >>>>>>> http://www.wireless-nets.com/resources/tutorials/low-cost_mesh_hotz
> >>>>>>>on e. ht ml
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> However, further research in Meraki has yielded some unpopular
> >>>>>>> business decisions they made just this year:
> >>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meraki#Criticism
> >>>>>>> http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/24/1318226
> >>>>>>> http://www.dailywireless.org/2008/11/05/meraki-diy-munifi-for-10kmi
> >>>>>>>le /
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I certainly understand Meraki's motivation to protect their market,
> >>>>>>> but my impression is that decisions to lock down hardware make
> >>>>>>> their products less viable in areas where wifi groups may face
> >>>>>>> direct competition from established ISPs.  (I.e. can't hack routers
> >>>>>>> to support QoS or customized captive portals).  The latter is
> >>>>>>> actually directly relevant to my proposal, since I'm aiming for a
> >>>>>>> captive portal hosting local ads to provide some operating revenue.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> So, assuming you have a $10-$15k start-up budget (including
> >>>>>>> equipment purchase. deployment, AND marketing) for installing wifi
> >>>>>>> along a ~2mile corridor with lots of 3story rooftops, what
> >>>>>>> suggestions are out there?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Meraki, and take your lumps?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Open-mesh.com, which is appealing since OpenWRT can be deployed to
> >>>>>>> legacy devices like residents' existing Linksys routers?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> OpenWRT + Kamikaze + OLSRd (i.e. roll your own)?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Freifunk.net?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> WifiDog for the captive portal + OpenWRT?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> The basic, 1st order requirements for the Mesh network are such:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> - Robust & stable (this will be a funded deployment, and sadly not
> >>>>>>> a dev project)
> >>>>>>> - Low-cost equipment (population density of this neighborhood makes
> >>>>>>> antenna strength 2nd order)
> >>>>>>> - Capacity for centralized admin console
> >>>>>>> - MAC tracking and auth (i.e. how many unique wifi clients have
> >>>>>>> connected) - Quality of Service (we anticipate lots of folks trying
> >>>>>>> to run file sharing, whether sanctioned or not)
> >>>>>>> - Customizable captive portal
> >>>>>>> - Ability to route to multiple DSL connections from different ISPs
> >>>>>>> w/in the mesh
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 2nd order requirements
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> - Support for legacy routers (e.g. able to flash old Linksys
> >>>>>>> products) - Good transceiver strength
> >>>>>>> - Integration with PayPal-like subscription payments
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 3rd order requirements
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> - Mechanism to control per MAC access based on # bytes downloaded,
> >>>>>>> e.g. "We see you've downloaded 3GB this month w/o paying for your
> >>>>>>> access..."  This would be a very appealing way to provide limited
> >>>>>>> free access, i.e. make the service more competitive, but then
> >>>>>>> enforce fair cost sharing in case folks opt for sustained
> >>>>>>> freeloading. - Ability to dynamically divert sessions away from
> >>>>>>> congested DSL uplinks.  (I hope that having multiple DSL
> >>>>>>> connections in the mesh will give us composite reserve bandwidth we
> >>>>>>> can actively allocate to handle sporadic traffic peaks.)  Do
> >>>>>>> conventional Mesh Node implementations already support this?
> >>>>>>> - Ability for wifi clients to connect to each other (Meraki does
> >>>>>>> not support this)
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> 4th order hopes and dreams
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> - Support for integrating a centralized squid-like HTTP caching
> >>>>>>> server.  I.e. commonly surfed traffic gets cached within the mesh.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I consciously anticipate this mesh node deployment to be a
> >>>>>>> temporary thing.  The goal is to establish a wifi-savvy
> >>>>>>> neighborhood presence that can use its collective buying power in
> >>>>>>> the next few years to transition to new technologies, White Space
> >>>>>>> devices in particular.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Any suggestions would be gladly welcome.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> CWN-Summit mailing list
> >>>>>> CWN-Summit at lists.cuwireless.net
> >>>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/cwn-summit

-- 
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stel valavanis  http://www.onshore.com/


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