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A mesh solution is workable, and possibly cheaper than a traditional deployment model. However, I can see significant drawbacks. It's likely to be less reliable

by Kalium 12y ago

A mesh solution is workable, and possibly cheaper than a traditional deployment model. However, I can see significant drawbacks. It's likely to be less reliable, slower, and not well suited to anything requiring low latency. It's also likely to be more prone to congestion problems and will probably be more difficult to manage. So it's possible, but I don't think it's a good model for how most Americans are likely to be using their internet connections. Most of their use would likely be the mesh as transit to the uplink and then off to Facebook or Amazon or Netflix. I think the lesson is that meshes and traditional systems have different strengths and weaknesses. One isn't always a good substitute for the other.

chatmasta 12y ago
How is this different than the current situation, other than one is wires, and one is wireless? ISP's still need to aggregate household cables into larger fiber before hitting the datacenter.
- Kalium 12y ago
  A wireless ISP is designed around high-bandwidth uplinks to aggregate from each tower/AP to central points. A mesh doesn't have this topographical feature. (Other considerations: limited frequency bands) The difference, I think, is that the traditional layout works better for the common use case than a mesh does. A mesh with an uplink would be preferable in a scenario where a traditional system is too difficult or expensive to deploy, or where traffic is going to be generally internal. Oh, and where you have some kind of trust mechanism in place. A mesh with malicious nodes is potential havoc. Central authorities give you a chain of trust that mesh systems don't have. And no, doing away with that central trust for political reasons is generally not as good an idea as it sounds like. Managing trust without any central points is much more difficult and much easier for users to screw up.
  - chatmasta 12y ago
    Oh, I see. I was using "wireless" and "mesh" interchangeably, but you are correct in distinguishing between them. There are routing differences between "wireless," where one company owns all the wireless routers, and "mesh," where ownership is decentralized and therefore so is routing. There could be some middleground we are not considering. A "federated" solution could be a good answer to this. Multiple companies/individuals provide the intermediate nodes and are responsible for their maintenance (and hopefully incentivized a la Torcoin). The trust issue is hard to solve, but variations of onion routing protocols exist that ensure only the exit node sees unencrypted traffic. At that point you are still trusting one entity, but trust is no worse than status quo of ISP's. Also, your post seems to imply wireless ISP (buy uplink, route over wireless) is already a thing. Is this in the USA? I would love some examples.
    - Kalium 12y ago
      The "middle ground" you describe is how internet is already provided in the US. Multiple companies provide intermediate nodes, connectivity, and bandwidth. Traffic is routed and re-routed according to network management protocols. They are incentivized to do this via USD. Trust is handled via centralized authorities and PKI. Wireless ISPs do exist in the US. monkeybrains and Clear both come to mind.

by Kalium 12y ago

chatmasta 12y ago

How is this different than the current situation, other than one is wires, and one is wireless? ISP's still need to aggregate household cables into larger fiber before hitting the datacenter.

Kalium 12y ago
A wireless ISP is designed around high-bandwidth uplinks to aggregate from each tower/AP to central points. A mesh doesn't have this topographical feature. (Other considerations: limited frequency bands) The difference, I think, is that the traditional layout works better for the common use case than a mesh does. A mesh with an uplink would be preferable in a scenario where a traditional system is too difficult or expensive to deploy, or where traffic is going to be generally internal. Oh, and where you have some kind of trust mechanism in place. A mesh with malicious nodes is potential havoc. Central authorities give you a chain of trust that mesh systems don't have. And no, doing away with that central trust for political reasons is generally not as good an idea as it sounds like. Managing trust without any central points is much more difficult and much easier for users to screw up.
- chatmasta 12y ago
  Oh, I see. I was using "wireless" and "mesh" interchangeably, but you are correct in distinguishing between them. There are routing differences between "wireless," where one company owns all the wireless routers, and "mesh," where ownership is decentralized and therefore so is routing. There could be some middleground we are not considering. A "federated" solution could be a good answer to this. Multiple companies/individuals provide the intermediate nodes and are responsible for their maintenance (and hopefully incentivized a la Torcoin). The trust issue is hard to solve, but variations of onion routing protocols exist that ensure only the exit node sees unencrypted traffic. At that point you are still trusting one entity, but trust is no worse than status quo of ISP's. Also, your post seems to imply wireless ISP (buy uplink, route over wireless) is already a thing. Is this in the USA? I would love some examples.
  - Kalium 12y ago
    The "middle ground" you describe is how internet is already provided in the US. Multiple companies provide intermediate nodes, connectivity, and bandwidth. Traffic is routed and re-routed according to network management protocols. They are incentivized to do this via USD. Trust is handled via centralized authorities and PKI. Wireless ISPs do exist in the US. monkeybrains and Clear both come to mind.