[wsfii-discuss] fon/meraki/community meshes differentiated .. (was: Re: Fwd: wireless connectivity.. Is802.11n the end of ethernet?)

Tue Oct 2 08:57:05 UTC 2007

The real point is, are any commercial manufacturers making flashable routers/APs that are suitable for meshes, at price points where the FONs and Merakis of the world have a run for their money?

If not, then the problem is how to create a 'business model' for community mesh that justifies 'subsidising' the real world cost of hardware/TCO to the end-consumer. For obvious philosophical reasons neither of these models is really the bee's knees,  but what alternate models exist whereby poor (3rd World, specifically) communities can hope to leverage themselves (without bankrupting themselves to get there)? Let's be clear, straightforward charity doesn't cut it. Does anyone know a model for altruistic venture capital? (We already have altruistic tech assistance, our listmembers and WSFII itself have richly proven it).

Someone mentioned acquiring Meraki hardware on eBay or somewhere and flashing new firmware, this also sounds very close to piracy, rather than a clean honest approach. If Meraki stuff is priced low, it is because the company expects to recover its money from the inbuilt functioning of a Meraki mesh, not a clean Open mesh. Scamming them, taking advantage of their chosen architecture, does not ring right, and in fact if done on a large scale will only lead to closure for Meraki. 

I think this is very important to understand, and for WSFII to evolve, so that we do not end up in some new-fangled hi-tech Bretton Woods trap.

I have taken the liberty of fixing the spelling in the subject line, and removing the [india-gii] that has had my filters clogged since this thread began. 

kloschi <kloschi at subsignal.org> wrote: Hi Roland,

On Mon, 2007-10-01 at 05:30 -0700, roland wrote:
> Thanks for the differenciation.
> I do understand you can buy FON or Meraki equipments and plug it on
> any available internet connection and extend your coverage.

I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question correctly ..

In general, yes, you can use fon or meraki or _any_ wifi enabled network
device to extend an static (or for correctness, also dhcp managed)
network. 
you cannot extend mesh networks by the default config and with the
default firmwares.

I hope that answers your question.

kind regards,
kloschi
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