[Battlemesh] My thoughts to setup a citywide mesh network

[Valent Turkovic]

On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 10:45 AM, Thomas Mueller <muwe61 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jump to the tl;dr if you are bored by a newbie questions …
>
>
> Hi all
>
> Most people are probably not ready to flash their homerouter router with a
> mesh network image. But many people can setup the guest access of their
> home router with an calculated combination of SSID and password. (bm_xxxx /
> bm_yyyy)
>
> A few people, many restaurants and others may connect an additional low
> cost Mesh-Router at the lanports of their regular router. I think about
> that 8 Dollar OpenWRT Router:
>
> https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/unbranded/a5-v11
>
> The onboard WLAN may connect the the to TOR-Network or to a VPN-Server,
> and an plugged in USB-WLAN-Dis ongle may expand the Mesh.
>
> A few people with unlimited mobile internet plan may also share the
> Internet on their mobile device with an calculated combination of SSID and
> password.
>
> A few people owns am USB-SIM-Dongle with unlimited mobile internet and an
> Accupack. If the USB-SIM-Dongle ist connected to the low cost router, and
> not to the Laptop the owner will have an always ready internet connection
> on the walk. At home, the internet connection of the dongle and the
> homerouter is bonded and failsafe. (Mini-mesh with two internet connections)
>
> The low-cost Router scan for SSIDs with „bm_“ and connect one by Muli WAN.
>
> Neighbors with different Internet providers may bond all internet
> connections together.
>
> A privat car or a Taxi-driver may also be equipped with that low-cost
> Hardware if the car owners have an advantage of that.
>
> and so on.
>
>
> My questions:
>
> 1) is the Low-Cost Router ok for that Project? A suggestion?
>

Maybe for some really small range application, for anything beyond 10m and
with more than 5 clients you need a better device.
Nest device so far for really affordable price was WR841N from TP-LINK
(around 18$). We also created and 3D printer outdoor case for it so it was
most affordable device to be put outside... otherwise outdoor devices cost
50$ onwards


>
> 2) Is OLSR OpenWRT the right choice? A suggestion?
>

OLSR is ok for up to 200 nodes, but why not just use existing solution that
JustWorks(tm) - http://nodes.wlan-si.net
Try it out and you will be probably be amazed :)

We use Babel and are probably biggest mesh network that work without issues
that others are having with using Batman and OLSR. Babel routing protocol
is only one that scales beyond 300 nodes and doesn't have lots of issues...

Cheers,
Valent.
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