Mesh WiFi Networks

An interesting article in Slashdot today about a company trying to bring mesh wifi networks as an alternative to the regular bridge type. The link they give is about the company, Meraki, and their iffy business model. (Namely, they sent out some open hardware, and then locked it down, and charge people to use their "dashboard" software).

I've always been a big fan of the concept of a mesh network. This is where each wifi node piggy-backs the signal of all neighboring nodes. This is a great way to spread the Internet to a neighborhood without having to wire up a bunch of cabling, etc. A big limitation in cities is that only the telecoms have authority to string up any kind of land wiring between buildings, across private and public property. Anyway, some of the comments pointed to the Open-Mesh solution, which uses open source software and sells the hardware for pretty reasonable prices. It would be nice to get my hands on a few of these and try them out. Check them out here for $50.