[Battlemesh] mini-survey towards an FCC-Free "global south" router

[Nicolás Echániz]

On 04/24/2016 06:13 AM, George Klissiaris wrote:
> Hi Nicolás,
> 
> Your effort looks very similar to ours in Sarantaporo, a rural area in
> north of Greece.


Your description looks very similar to the scenario where our networks
have been deployed. Even the landscape in the pictures is similar :)

The main difference is we're using bmx6 for routing among the multiple
mesh clouds.

Thanks for your detailed answer to the survey!

We can talk in more detail in the specific list which I saw you've
already subscribed to.


Un abrazo,
Nico


> So to finalize:
> 
> /1) what's your most common node configuration?/
> 
> For the backbone network (the network that interconnects all the
> villages in the same infrastructure and shares its internet connection
> with the access network) we use:
> Multiple bridged wireless devices working on 5 Ghz (ubiquity rocket m5
> with rocket dishes) connected to an indoor router that actually handles
> routing (mikrotik router) (total 21 backbones nodes)
> 
> For the access network (the local networks of the villages to which end
> users connect to in order to have access to the internet and community
> network local services):
> Open-mesh devices, with openwrt firmware and batman-adv routing protocol
> (total 150 mesh devices)
> 
> /2) considering your most common node configuration: could a router with
> two integrated 5Ghz radios for meshing + one 2.4Ghz radio for local AP
> provision cover most cases?/
> 
> I think for our case having a plug and play solution that people who
> doesn't know a lot about networks and protocols could just plug in and
> deploy a backbone node or mesh node and at the same time an access
> network node without a lot of configuration and settings would be great.
> This is why until now we decided to separate the routing from the radio,
> because for the most local people it is easier to turn on two radio
> devices and make a wireless connection with each other, but when they
> had to do routing and other network settings it was difficult to do. So
> having different devices for the routing which where already setup from
> the coreteam of Sarantaporo.gr with the appropriate settings and then
> telling local people which cable and which device to connect where,
> worked better for us.
> So if we had available an affordable device that could do all these
> (integrated radios for p2p links for the backbone with routing
> capabilities + a radio local access point), i think would cover most of
> our cases.
> 
> You can also see photos from network deployments at our gallery bellow:
> http://gallery.sarantaporo.gr/index.php?/category/28
> http://gallery.sarantaporo.gr/index.php?/category/45
> 
> George Klissiaris
> Sarantaporo.gr Non Profit Organization
> 
> 2016-04-24 9:23 GMT+03:00 Nicolás Echániz <nicoechaniz at altermundi.net
> <mailto:nicoechaniz at altermundi.net>>:
> 
>     On 04/23/2016 10:40 PM, Dave Taht wrote:
>     > I know it is heretical for me to suggest it on this list, but I tend
>     > towards thinking that the future holds more multi-channel radios on it
>     > in AP/station modes, as ad-hoc is so increasingly hard to use on so
>     > many devices, and at higher rates.
>     >
>     > There's also stuff like this for backhauls:
>     > https://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber24-hd/
> 
>     we've been experimenting with the 5Ghz models:
>     blog.altermundi.net/article/se-ensancha-el-backbone/
>     <http://blog.altermundi.net/article/se-ensancha-el-backbone/>
> 
>     good result until one chain started acting up. Now it's unstable and the
>     ubiquiti people agree the hardware is failing. Too bad because we are
>     out of warranty time and there's no way we can buy those again soon...
>     I'd say: stay away from expensive equipment with integrated electronics
>     & antenna. Withe every other solution where the electronics are a
>     separate device, it's quite cheap to replace that and keep the antennas,
>     which are the most expensive component most of the time in long shot
>     links.
> 
>     > I would love to see people working on deployable versions of this
>     > technogy, also: http://kumunetworks.com/
> 
> 
>     never heard of it, but it looks really interesting.
> 
>     Are there any real world implementations or is it just
>     theoretical/experimental at this point?
>