3 ms·
Ask HN: Can a mesh network replace fiber?
or is using fiber inevitable?
- niftich 10y agoReplace fiber where? The backhaul (from your neighborhood junction box to the Internet) or the last mile?
- PaulHoule 10y agoNo. Mesh networks are like the millimeter wave fairy. People want to believe in it, but it is not real. Every time you transmit a radio packet there is a chance that it will interfere with a packet or be interfered with by another packet. Note there are two factors so interference goes as the square of the number of packets. Want fast wifi? Gave a wired router in your house and connect it with Ethernet to a wireless access point in the middle of the house. If your house is big, get more access points. Wireless repeater add more hops, more latency, more interference. It is not necessarily true that adding nodes adds performance, often the opposite is true. People today think wires are ritually unclean and they will suffer for unreliable and broken tech because of it.
- wmf 10y agoIf the link rate of the mesh is ~4 Gbps maybe it could come close to providing 1 Gbps per customer.
- grizzles 10y agoThe technology side is feasible. The economic / critical mass proposition is a bigger problem. I tested the idea of a static mesh network, but there was too little interest in it. See here: http://tricorder.org/eric/upliink.html http://tricorder.org/eric/upliink.html
- gravypod 10y agoA mesh network can use fiber. A mesh network is just a network where there are redundant connections between all systems on the network. This does not limit us to RF for everything. We CAN use fiber in a mesh network.