[wsfii-discuss] WSFII and Village Telco synergy

Tue Nov 15 04:21:09 UTC 2011

Many of our listmembers also lurk, and post, and contribute towards development, on the Village Telco project (VoIP in a mesh box - originally only the Mesh Potato, now that and more).

Just recently, from South America, an interesting question was posted, one I feel really belongs more on this list, where people have far more experience of this kind of thing. I do hope it will provoke both discussion and active contribution to this concept - perhaps spawn a new project even?

Mail copied below here (with permission):

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 8:22 PM, Hector Simosa <hsimosa at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Carlos,
>I think you have two problems to solve for designing the mesh. One is the distance between locations as well Gillet said, you need repeater stations similar to the "NanoStation loco2" to join the links.
>The second problem is the determination of the need for bandwidth (typical problem of traffic engineering) it is essential when you have many users. To have a facility that works well, that assure users can be navigated without unnecessary delay, you will need several distributed WAN links. That is the starting point and will depend on local conditions, as well as existing telecommunications facilities.Hector
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>On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Carlos Martinez <carlos.elsalvador at gmail.com> wrote:
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>Thanks, I agree wiht it,
>>Carlos
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>>2011/11/13 Vickram Crishna <vvcrishna at gmail.com>
>>
>>I think Carlos may benefit from discussions at wsfii, many of whose members are active here, but the objectives are different - parallel, but not the same focus. With your permission, I am copying this exchange there, and maybe a separate dialogue would be useful.
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>>>On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 7:54 AM, T Gillett <tgillett at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Hi Carlos
>>>>I may be misunderstanding the picture, but it looks like you have some fairly long links there.
>>>>The effective link distance for an MP is around 1km, so I expect that you would have to use specific long range devices for these links eg the Ubiquity NanoBridge type equipment.
>>>>The MP and TP devices would form smaller local cells at the ends of these longer links.
>>>>Or am I misunderstanding?
>>>>Regards
>>>>Terry
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 12:02 PM, Carlos Martinez <carlos.elsalvador at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Dear Terry
>>>>>Thanks for your answer. I am very impress with the work all of you are developing. 
>>>>>
>>>>>As I said in my last email, in several countries many rural municipalities have a few docens of schools. In the picture (attached with this email), you can see 30 schools that could be mesh with MP01 (we used MP01 parameters to run radiomobile simulation). The town is one of more than a docen towns located bellow a tropical volcanic complex (two volcanos and several mountains).  The picture describes an area of 12km2. Meshing 12-15 towns with 200-250 small schools will cover an area of 50-60 km2.
>>>>>
>>>>>I see many possibilities in this scenario.
>>>>>Kind wishes,
>>>>>Carlos
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>2011/11/13 T Gillett <tgillett at gmail.com>
>>>>>
>>>>>Hi Carlos
>>>>>>I think that MP01 running SECN firmware would go close to meeting the needs you have described. However it does include a telephony subsystem and is built in a ruggedised outdoor housing, both of which add to the cost which may be a burden if you can  not utilise those facilities fully.
>>>>>>We are currently working on porting the SECN firmware to low cost commodity devices such as the TPLink WR703N which sells for $20 retail or $25 in mains powered form.
>>>>>>Our idea is to be able to be able to build a mesh based on a combination of specialised devices such as the MP01 and commodity devices such as the 703.
>>>>>>Telephony is supported through plain phones on the MP01 and through softphones eg on mobile devices such as Android cell phones or tablets, or Apple devices.
>>>>>>We also support locally stored web content stored on usb devices attached to the 703 unit for example. This allows a network to operate standalone or with reduced internet access.
>>>>>>It is also possible to  use one or more nodes as gateways to connect the mesh to an uplink connecting to the wider internet or a private network backbone.
>>>>>>Our approach is to use low maintenance, low power solid state devices for maximum reliability in the field.
>>>>>>With this approach it should be quite easy to assemble an economical wireless based network for the type of school situation you have outlined.
>>>>>>Linking the schools together in a cluster would require more specialised long range equipment such as provided by Ubiquity. This is no real problem technically and has been done in a number of Village Telco implementations.
>>>>>>The SECN firmware provides simple voice and web based interfaces to allow set up in the  field by users with limited technical training and facilities.
>>>>>>Regards
>>>>>>Terry-- 
>>>>>>
>>>>>>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "village-telco-dev" group.
>>>>>>To post to this group, send email to village-telco-dev at googlegroups.com.
>>>>>>To unsubscribe from this group, send email to village-telco-dev+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
>>>>>>For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/village-telco-dev?hl=en.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>-- 
>>>>>Carlos Eugenio Martínez Cruz
>>>>>Escuela de Ingeniería Eléctrica
>>>>>Universidad de El Salvador
>>>>>
>>>>>

Vickram
http://communicall.wordpress.com
http://vvcrishna.wordpress.com
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