outdoor repeater

http://meraki.net/news/

Comments?

Messy mesh system?

seaweedsteve <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>http://meraki.net/news/
>Comments?

Meraki is a commercial version of MIT Roofnet. See:
<http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/doku.php>

You might find this article of interest. Note the packet loss
(delivery probability) and thruput numbers.
<http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/doku.php?id=interesting>

>Messy mesh system?

Single radio mesh networks doth suck.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Aha. Same people from MIT, I see. Well, no doubt they are a smart
bunch. Maybe they will get something good together.

I was wondering if they had gotten around the single radio repeater
problems. Looks like not much, but I'm sure it helps that they have
all matched sets that they are tweaking to work together. I see
that they don't have WPA yet, but plan to. That would be a
breakthrough, no? If it worked reliably.

On their forums, customers talk about re-starting a lot. Uh-huh.

Seems like they (Meraki) do have a good plan, though. They seem to
provide the monitoring and hot-spot software and everything, no
programming skills needed, $60-100 per unit. Of course they are
charging 20% off every dollar the administrator bills. That's where
they will make their money if it takes hold as a system.

How much more would it have cost for them to set these boxes up with
two radios? $20 more per unit? Or is it not that simple?


Steve

seaweedsteve <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Aha. Same people from MIT, I see. Well, no doubt they are a smart
>bunch. Maybe they will get something good together.

I again call to your attention the web page with the performance
summary of the MIT Roofnet system. It's not very impressive and
probably not ready for massive deployment with an average packet loss
of 50% at 1Mbit/sec.
<http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/doku.php?id=interesting>

>I was wondering if they had gotten around the single radio repeater
>problems.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results. (Albert Einstein, Rita Mae Brown, and Rudyard
Kipling).

>Looks like not much, but I'm sure it helps that they have
>all matched sets that they are tweaking to work together. I see
>that they don't have WPA yet, but plan to. That would be a
>breakthrough, no? If it worked reliably.

Oh, you want reliability too? Well, you're not going to get that from
even single hop wireless, much less from mesh. There are just too
many sources of interference, too many environmental problems, and too
much abuse to make that happen. Wireless, by its very nature is
unreliable. Now, you can trade other things for reliablity, such as
trading speed, range, features, and latency, but the consumer oriented
wireless market, reliability is the very last requirement.

Most of the wireless mesh vendors offer WPA and WPA2. I know Tropos
and BelAir do.

>On their forums, customers talk about re-starting a lot. Uh-huh.

Different problem, methinks. It's based on the Netgear WGT634U, which
seems to have some "issues". I don't know the details so I won't dig
deeper. If they had a variety of hardware platforms, it might be
easier to assign the blame:
<http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/doku.php?id=wgt634u>
I don't think it's the RoofNet firmware as it's based on OpenWRT,
which is quite reliable.

>Seems like they (Meraki) do have a good plan, though. They seem to
>provide the monitoring and hot-spot software and everything, no
>programming skills needed, $60-100 per unit. Of course they are
>charging 20% off every dollar the administrator bills. That's where
>they will make their money if it takes hold as a system.

It's the lowest cost version of consumer mesh networks that has bombed
badly in the past. The last big deployment was when Nokia bought
Rooftop Networks and tried to sell it to ISP's.
<http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/data/articlebrief/americasnetwork/412002/34898/article.pdf>
The price is lower and it's being sold directly instead of to ISP's,
but otherwise, it's deja vu.

>How much more would it have cost for them to set these boxes up with
>two radios? $20 more per unit? Or is it not that simple?

Nothing is simple in wireless. A 2nd MiniPCI card inside the box will
add about $50 in hardware costs. However, it will also require
contention logic, antenna combining, RF isolation, and *MAJOR* changes
to the routeing algorithm and MAC layer code. For example, when
Tropos went from their single radio 5210 to their dual radio 5320,
they also added substantial firmware features, such as the ability to
use either radio as a backhaul, dynamically. It also increases
network management complexity. Anyway, as I recall, the large quanity
prices went from about $1,200 per single radio poletop, to about
$2,000 for the dual radio version. I'm guessing on the prices.

Router overview:
<http://www.troposnetworks.com/products/metromesh_routers.html>
Tropos 5210 (one radio):
<http://www.troposnetworks.com/pdf/5210_datasheet.pdf>
Tropos 5320 (two radios):
<http://www.troposnetworks.com/products/pdf/5320_datasheet.pdf>

General mesh article on the one or two radio issue:
<http://www.benchmark.com/news/sv/2006/08_17_2006.php>

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:46:43 -0700, seaweedsteve
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
<(E-Mail Removed). com>:

>Aha. Same people from MIT, I see. Well, no doubt they are a smart
>bunch. Maybe they will get something good together.

A greedy, premature bunch.

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_HowTo>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

John Navas <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:46:43 -0700, seaweedsteve
><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
><(E-Mail Removed) .com>:
>
>>Aha. Same people from MIT, I see. Well, no doubt they are a smart
>>bunch. Maybe they will get something good together.
>
>A greedy, premature bunch.

Greedy? They're selling their mesh nodes for $50 and their solar
powered repeaters for $100. That's giving them away. The may be
financially suicidal, but far from greedy.

As to premature, methinks they're a bit late, as Nokia/Rooftop was
doing roughly the same thing years ago, and bombed.

Oops... I'm late.
--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:43:00 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote in <(E-Mail Removed)>:

>John Navas <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>
>>On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:46:43 -0700, seaweedsteve
>><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
>><(E-Mail Removed) s.com>:
>>
>>>Aha. Same people from MIT, I see. Well, no doubt they are a smart
>>>bunch. Maybe they will get something good together.
>>
>>A greedy, premature bunch.
>
>Greedy? They're selling their mesh nodes for $50 and their solar
>powered repeaters for $100. That's giving them away. The may be
>financially suicidal, but far from greedy.

That's called buying a market, just like the dot-bomb doofuses.

Greedy as in rushing to market, hoping to capitalize on a buyout or IPO.

Bet they were already browsing the car catalogs.

>As to premature, methinks they're a bit late, as Nokia/Rooftop was
>doing roughly the same thing years ago, and bombed.

Premature because it's not really ready for prime time.

Nokia/Rooftop was pre-premature, and wasn't the only such way early dumb
idea.

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_HowTo>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> John Navas <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>
>> On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:46:43 -0700, seaweedsteve
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
>> <(E-Mail Removed). com>:
>>
>>> Aha. Same people from MIT, I see. Well, no doubt they are a smart
>>> bunch. Maybe they will get something good together.
>> A greedy, premature bunch.
>
> Greedy? They're selling their mesh nodes for $50 and their solar
> powered repeaters for $100.

Have they actually quoted a price as all references I have seen are $99
dollar for the outdoor version with no price quoted for the "Solar Power
Kit"
http://meraki.com/news/
Pricing will be set this summer but the Meraki Solar will clearly be the
most affordable option on the market

I couldn't find any ref to the Meraki Outdoor on the FCC website so have
they just used a "Weather Proofed " cased version of the mini?
Mini FCC ID UDX-MERAKI-MINI


That's giving them away. The may be
> financially suicidal, but far from greedy.
>
> As to premature, methinks they're a bit late, as Nokia/Rooftop was
> doing roughly the same thing years ago, and bombed.
>
> Oops... I'm late.

kev <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>> John Navas <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>>
>>> On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:46:43 -0700, seaweedsteve
>>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
>>> <(E-Mail Removed). com>:
>>>
>>>> Aha. Same people from MIT, I see. Well, no doubt they are a smart
>>>> bunch. Maybe they will get something good together.
>>> A greedy, premature bunch.
>>
>> Greedy? They're selling their mesh nodes for $50 and their solar
>> powered repeaters for $100.
>
>Have they actually quoted a price as all references I have seen are $99
>dollar for the outdoor version with no price quoted for the "Solar Power
>Kit"
>http://meraki.com/news/
>Pricing will be set this summer but the Meraki Solar will clearly be the
>most affordable option on the market

No quotes yet. I scraped the $50 price off this article:
<http://www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/5885/1/23/>
Of course, it might be higher but is still a bargain.

>I couldn't find any ref to the Meraki Outdoor on the FCC website so have
>they just used a "Weather Proofed " cased version of the mini?
>Mini FCC ID UDX-MERAKI-MINI

Hmmm.... You're right. There's only one device listed on the FCC ID
web pile under "UDX".
<https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout =500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=745179&fcc_i d='UDX-MERAKI-MINI'>
Changing the power source, especially if that power source has active
components, requires re-certification. However, the outdoor version
looks like just some repackaging, which if it contains RF shielding,
does require re-certification. Sorry, but I don't have any inside
info or knowledge of pending applications.

Hmmm.... 3am and I have a cloud of bugs orbiting the desk lamp. Summer
is here.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

>> I couldn't find any ref to the Meraki Outdoor on the FCC website so have
>> they just used a "Weather Proofed " cased version of the mini?
>> Mini FCC ID UDX-MERAKI-MINI
>
> Hmmm.... You're right. There's only one device listed on the FCC ID
> web pile under "UDX".
> <https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout =500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=745179&fcc_i d='UDX-MERAKI-MINI'>
> Changing the power source, especially if that power source has active
> components, requires re-certification.

Seems as though they are doing some maintenance and I can't get access.
However I think the mini had very flexible power requirements so that it
could be run from batteries and that it also had non-802.3af POE.

However, the outdoor version
> looks like just some repackaging, which if it contains RF shielding,
> does require re-certification. Sorry, but I don't have any inside
> info or knowledge of pending applications.
>
> Hmmm.... 3am and I have a cloud of bugs orbiting the desk lamp. Summer
> is here.
>