[Freedombox-discuss] We do need mesh networking

[Luca Dionisi]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 5:27 AM, Michael Stone <michael at laptop.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 18:49:22 UTC, Michael Blizek wrote:
>>
>> I have not seen *any* ready-to-use of meshing so far that is very
>> scaleable.
>> In order to scale, you basically have to limit the depth of routes you
>> discover and the length of routes you take. Otherwise in average,
>> everybody
>> needs to forward more data compared to the amount of data end nodes can
>> send/receive.
>
> In the years since my time with OLPC, I have found this paper:
>
>  "Capacity of Ad Hoc Wireless Networks",
> http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.28.6218
> to be a good explanation of some of the underlying issues.
> Do you have any competing citations that I might add to my library?
>

You should distinguish mesh networks and ad-hoc wireless networks.
Mesh networks are not implicitly wireless, nor ad-hoc.
The problems in that paper refer to ad-hoc.

Make a mesh network variegated and you won't have those problems.
e.g. Node A, B and C create an ad-hoc network at channel 1. Node D
acts as an access point for stations node E, F and G at channel 11.
Node A, E and J are connected in a wired LAN. Node J also forms
another ad-hoc network, say at channel 1 because it is not in the
range of A, B and C.
The more the network is variegated, the less you face problems that
are related to ad-hoc wireless networks.
Perhaps, it will also bring new sort of problems, admittedly.

No citations, though. Sorry.