-
Join the MyBroadband community
South Africa’s biggest forum. Discuss, discover, and connect with thousands of members.
-
Question of the Day: Which legendary musicians or bands have you seen live?
Announcing a Community Wi-Fi Mesh
- Thread starter Iliyan
- Start date
Moederloos
Honorary Master
Tunasashimi: Would you be interested in a joint venture with the robot vendors that sell the Homeless Talk? We can use them as datalinks across busy roads where it may not be possible for the younger routers to transmit easily?
I am just concerned we may have a lot of "packet loss" - but I am sure we can work something out.
I am just concerned we may have a lot of "packet loss" - but I am sure we can work something out.
Iliyan
Active Member
Hi...
I see that some of you have missed my posts – let’s see if I can catch up...
As a rule that some of you must be familiar with by now, I am going to ignore the senseless remarks, poisonous snippets and likes. I am sure, you will understand this – but if you don’t - one day, when you grow up, you will for sure understand…
Seeing that the preferred style on this forum is to read back as many as two posts and then never interpret anything properly but rather assume or assume based on assumptions of someone else, I will have to change my style little bit, so to match the running flow…
Shall I recap – we are building community meshes across the major urban areas in SA. To achieve that, we are using legal emitting, mesh capable, dual functionality nodes (router+AP). The number of the nodes that we are going to have in the field is not that that important, but when we finish we estimate to have just over 50,000 of these units deployed across the five largest cities in SA. I am glad that some of you are compassionately concerned over the challenges that we face during the roll-out phase – that has been keeping us most busy. That, as well as securing the supplies of the equipment to satisfy our needed rate of deployment – which is equivalent to a coverage of about 100 sq km per month.
The result of this hard work is going to be more than satisfying though – the Wi-Fi Community members wouldn’t need anything but the Wi-Fi equipment build into their PCs to connect to the mesh. If they want to use the mesh to send or receive any P2P traffic, they would not be asked to pay anything for doing that (just a note to the consistently dumb who keep ignoring this fact – it is going to be FREE). And if the members need to access the Internet, it will cost them only R149.00 per month for 2Mbps, unlimited, unmetered, high-quality Internet access, with no set-up fees and no hardware to purchase. In the future, the community members will have access to many services – some of them on a communal basis (read if there is a charge, it will be charged by the community and the revenue so earned will stay in the community) and some of them on a commercial basis (mostly provided by third party service providers – so far we have none to offer). Now, how hard is to comprehend a value proposition as simple as this?
Message to the not so bright - If you battle to understand such a simple proposal, sorry, nothing we can do to help you out – stay with the rip-off SP you are with now – you obviously deserve it…
As I mentioned before – the commercial aspects of our operation is none of your business!
Please stop asking commercial questions! But if you really, really like to know how we do it, come and join me, if you have merit to do so and I will gladly explain you all the commercial aspects of our operation. Like how come that we can afford to give all schools free Internet access (free forever), or how do we source our Satellite Internet connectivity at what rate and how come that the leading tier 1 ISP in the US is committing huge resources to us but is charging us very, very little for them, or how come that we can we run such a large network with only 40 people staff. But, unless you are part of our company, there is no way that I am going to disclose our trade secrets. So, give up on that one…
Going back to the network. I am sure most of you realise – unless you one of those few with the intelligence of a marsupial – that we have never claimed any unreasonable performance that has been said by some on this forum. Too many to mention, but for a complete clarification please visit www.wifi-mesh.co.za and read for yourselves. Most of the assumptions on this forum are proven to be wrong and groundless...
Our units are running standard 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11g) using three main processes – one is the Wi-Fi AP process, second is SrcRR routing protocol, and the third is a proprietary, interference measuring and avoiding process. We are also running a number of less active processes – like user authentication and authorisation process, bandwidth shaping agent process, etc. Despite having very good software, we do believe that our strength lies in our radio system – they are superb and they allow us to operate our nodes at 20dbm EIRP and achieve spectacular links to a standard Wi-Fi CPE in actual urban and even some ex-urban conditions. I hope that most of you can comprehend that…
I understand the anxiousness of some (based on limitations within, perhaps) to chose to build a P2P 2.4GHz link by hugely exceeding the EIRP. Well, I said this so many times – at no time we break the law and we only run legal EIRP. Full stop.
I am sure some of you, without even reading this post, will jump in and say – but what about answering our questions. Let me write this nicely – go and read all the pages of www.wifi-mesh.co.za – I am sure there will be fewer questions after that…
I see that some of you have missed my posts – let’s see if I can catch up...
As a rule that some of you must be familiar with by now, I am going to ignore the senseless remarks, poisonous snippets and likes. I am sure, you will understand this – but if you don’t - one day, when you grow up, you will for sure understand…
Seeing that the preferred style on this forum is to read back as many as two posts and then never interpret anything properly but rather assume or assume based on assumptions of someone else, I will have to change my style little bit, so to match the running flow…
Shall I recap – we are building community meshes across the major urban areas in SA. To achieve that, we are using legal emitting, mesh capable, dual functionality nodes (router+AP). The number of the nodes that we are going to have in the field is not that that important, but when we finish we estimate to have just over 50,000 of these units deployed across the five largest cities in SA. I am glad that some of you are compassionately concerned over the challenges that we face during the roll-out phase – that has been keeping us most busy. That, as well as securing the supplies of the equipment to satisfy our needed rate of deployment – which is equivalent to a coverage of about 100 sq km per month.
The result of this hard work is going to be more than satisfying though – the Wi-Fi Community members wouldn’t need anything but the Wi-Fi equipment build into their PCs to connect to the mesh. If they want to use the mesh to send or receive any P2P traffic, they would not be asked to pay anything for doing that (just a note to the consistently dumb who keep ignoring this fact – it is going to be FREE). And if the members need to access the Internet, it will cost them only R149.00 per month for 2Mbps, unlimited, unmetered, high-quality Internet access, with no set-up fees and no hardware to purchase. In the future, the community members will have access to many services – some of them on a communal basis (read if there is a charge, it will be charged by the community and the revenue so earned will stay in the community) and some of them on a commercial basis (mostly provided by third party service providers – so far we have none to offer). Now, how hard is to comprehend a value proposition as simple as this?
Message to the not so bright - If you battle to understand such a simple proposal, sorry, nothing we can do to help you out – stay with the rip-off SP you are with now – you obviously deserve it…
As I mentioned before – the commercial aspects of our operation is none of your business!
Please stop asking commercial questions! But if you really, really like to know how we do it, come and join me, if you have merit to do so and I will gladly explain you all the commercial aspects of our operation. Like how come that we can afford to give all schools free Internet access (free forever), or how do we source our Satellite Internet connectivity at what rate and how come that the leading tier 1 ISP in the US is committing huge resources to us but is charging us very, very little for them, or how come that we can we run such a large network with only 40 people staff. But, unless you are part of our company, there is no way that I am going to disclose our trade secrets. So, give up on that one…
Going back to the network. I am sure most of you realise – unless you one of those few with the intelligence of a marsupial – that we have never claimed any unreasonable performance that has been said by some on this forum. Too many to mention, but for a complete clarification please visit www.wifi-mesh.co.za and read for yourselves. Most of the assumptions on this forum are proven to be wrong and groundless...
Our units are running standard 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11g) using three main processes – one is the Wi-Fi AP process, second is SrcRR routing protocol, and the third is a proprietary, interference measuring and avoiding process. We are also running a number of less active processes – like user authentication and authorisation process, bandwidth shaping agent process, etc. Despite having very good software, we do believe that our strength lies in our radio system – they are superb and they allow us to operate our nodes at 20dbm EIRP and achieve spectacular links to a standard Wi-Fi CPE in actual urban and even some ex-urban conditions. I hope that most of you can comprehend that…
I understand the anxiousness of some (based on limitations within, perhaps) to chose to build a P2P 2.4GHz link by hugely exceeding the EIRP. Well, I said this so many times – at no time we break the law and we only run legal EIRP. Full stop.
I am sure some of you, without even reading this post, will jump in and say – but what about answering our questions. Let me write this nicely – go and read all the pages of www.wifi-mesh.co.za – I am sure there will be fewer questions after that…
Last edited:
From www.wifi-mesh.co.za
That, sir, is an unreasonable and unrealistic performance claim.
54Mbps actual throughput on wifi (802.11a, b or g) is impossible, and you have yet to prove me wrong.
savagedavid
Active Member
Does that include all the the technical non-commercial questions that have been posted which you seemingly choose to ignore?
GuRu
Senior Member
As of yet you have not replied to my post . Is this venture of yours still going forward ? as i have 6 people also interested in joining.
Maybe you could use us as beta testers to get this off the ground.
Moederloos
Honorary Master
Well, that was disappointing - seems instead of getting an answer to my (polite) questions, my intelligence is put into question.
Pity.
Pity.
Iliyan
Active Member
GuRu, I apologise for not replying directly, but in my very first post I described our intention in certain detail and I assumed that you've seen my post after you've posted yours. Now I realise that you might have missed that post.
Talking to myself - "The assumption is the mother of all errors... Don't assume!"
As of today, we still have not decided which exact locations to roll out first. We sort of tend to favour an area in the shape of an arch, more or less parallel to the Witkoppen road - from Rivonia to just west of Hans Strijdom. But as I said - stay tuned for update on our final decision - when we are ready, we will publish a list of the exact areas that will have continuous coverage.
Edited: oops - I meant Witkoppen rd, and not Woodmead rd as i wrote originally. Honest mistake.
Last edited:
RichardP
Banned
And in other news, Santa Claus was arrested on charges of fraud and corruption. He states in a public forum that "The little people made me do it!"
@IIliyan,
You know the saying of "put up or shut up" , but this might apply. So far you have not answered any technical OR buisness questions (Buisness I really dont care about)
Can you back up any of this tripe you are feeding me?
next you gonna say your wifi radios have a -118 sensitivity!
@IIliyan,
You know the saying of "put up or shut up" , but this might apply. So far you have not answered any technical OR buisness questions (Buisness I really dont care about)
Can you back up any of this tripe you are feeding me?
next you gonna say your wifi radios have a -118 sensitivity!
Last edited:
Iliyan
Active Member
Well, by the certainty that you express in your message, I think that the only way to prove to you that our claim is reasonable, is to allow you to perform a test. But by judging you by your statements, I doubt that you are capable of executing a technical test that would prove or disprove your claim.
I can draw you a diagram (if you cannot imagine two Wi-Fi equipped devices communicating with each other via 4 nodes in parallel, each node supporting different transmission rate) or I can try to describe this simple arrangement with words. In any case, our statement is precise and we cannot be held responsible if people misinterpret it. Have you given it the right level of though, perhaps you should re-read our statement again and think of a way to achieve that transmission rate, instead of repeating to yourself that it is impossible to do so.
In any case, whichever way I adopt to try to prove you wrong, I am afraid, the end result will be the same - you will believe in what you believe - and we will stand by our claim that a Wi-Fi equipped unit can communicate across our mesh under certain conditions with a speed of up to 54Mbps.
I am not interested in proving you wrong BTW, it is fine whichever way you feel about this… Really…
"bonding"
Last edited:
Iliyan
Active Member
Ignore my question about the AP. By reading the coverage section of the website I now know what is required.
Wonder if my wireless card will pick anything up with it's scrawny little antenna lol
As it is I live in a wireless void where even Vodacom signal is disgusting. Funny thing is its only in my house, the second I walk outside my voda signal is full. This in the Honeydew area of Roodepoort.
Feels weird to be quoting myself.
I dont think that we will reach Honeydew in the inital phase, but I am sure soon thereafter - read aroud the end of the year - we would have at least covered partially that area, if not fully. The large AH areas will never be covered though - sorry, can't do it with 20 dbm EIRP, not today...
Can you please show us traceroutes to local and international sites from your network/backbone?
I want to see your 280ms satellite link
You can do all the fancy stuff on the "mesh" as you like, but the end user, with "any Wi-Fi Certified device" is not going to get 54mbps out of it.
It is a physical limitation of the technology, and no "fancy software" is going to get around it.
Do you want me to get out paint and draw you a little 802.11 packet? With header overhead, and then the Ethernet packet (with its associated overhead) and then the IP packet (with its overhead)?
Work it out...
"overhead"
When will you be coming to Cape Town? This sounds really cool, 54mbps over a normal 802.11g link in normal conditions and radios with -118db receive sensitivity all running on 400mhz processors which can detect noise and find out where it's coming from!
</sarcasm>
Oh, and if you dont know what overhead is (From wikipedia, the free encylopedia):
In computer science, overhead is generally considered any combination of excess or indirect computation time, memory, bandwidth, or other resources that are required to be utilized or expanded to enable a particular goal. It is a special case of engineering overhead.
</sarcasm>
Oh, and if you dont know what overhead is (From wikipedia, the free encylopedia):
In computer science, overhead is generally considered any combination of excess or indirect computation time, memory, bandwidth, or other resources that are required to be utilized or expanded to enable a particular goal. It is a special case of engineering overhead.
Madness
I will not touch this with a barge pole, Until i have seen what Neotel is going to do.
Seriously, Pigs will fly and the SABC will play the Sowetan Freedom day (I have a Dream) Advert, before this works.
I will not touch this with a barge pole, Until i have seen what Neotel is going to do.
Seriously, Pigs will fly and the SABC will play the Sowetan Freedom day (I have a Dream) Advert, before this works.
TheRoDent
Cool Ideas Rep
Alright, let's ask a plain question.
When is the http://www.wifi-mesh.co.za/apply.htm application page going to get properly secured ?
When is the http://www.wifi-mesh.co.za/apply.htm application page going to get properly secured ?
Tunasashimi
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2005
- Messages
- 337
- Reaction score
- 0
How community-friendly are you...?
So, you got some Meraki firmware, running on one or two atheros/broadcom (Fon/WRT) devices, neatly stashed in one enclosure... Or, probably more stable, a mikrotik routerboard with 1/2 wireless nics... Are you willing to give more details or do we have to become part of your network?
Will you be selling the hardware to anyone and let them manage their own settings and SSID's... (For example WUG enthusiasts can use to extend their WUG without having to muck about a lot of settings, more plug-and-play than the usual gear...) Or do you feel that the profit on your hardware can be offset even more by being the sole gatekeepers to the network?
Also, on the technical side... does your routing protocol take into account daily wireless signal strength and noise level trends (<-- smart idea), or does it purely rely on TCP throughput, to determine the best route?
Also, do you have a version of the firmware available that you'd be willing to release in some form?
Just some answerable questions I'm sure a lot of us are wondering about, and that I've not heard answered...
So, you got some Meraki firmware, running on one or two atheros/broadcom (Fon/WRT) devices, neatly stashed in one enclosure... Or, probably more stable, a mikrotik routerboard with 1/2 wireless nics... Are you willing to give more details or do we have to become part of your network?
Will you be selling the hardware to anyone and let them manage their own settings and SSID's... (For example WUG enthusiasts can use to extend their WUG without having to muck about a lot of settings, more plug-and-play than the usual gear...) Or do you feel that the profit on your hardware can be offset even more by being the sole gatekeepers to the network?
Also, on the technical side... does your routing protocol take into account daily wireless signal strength and noise level trends (<-- smart idea), or does it purely rely on TCP throughput, to determine the best route?
Also, do you have a version of the firmware available that you'd be willing to release in some form?
Just some answerable questions I'm sure a lot of us are wondering about, and that I've not heard answered...
Tunasashimi
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2005
- Messages
- 337
- Reaction score
- 0
Hi, it's me, double posting again!
The market is so ready for a good off-the-shelf meshing device. If you truly have the product we are looking for, and you play your cards right, you could have the killer-app for WISPS. (As opposed to the wisp-killer app
)
Have you read what Fon is doing? Getting ISP's to bundle 'free hotspots' with their packages. Of course, with limited bandwidth, thats not going to fly in SA. But geez... so many possibilities, such perfect hardware. Yet so much room for improvement in the drivers and networking protocols! Not to mention the business models... and lack of largely useful content. (Freeze me in a time capsule!)
The market is so ready for a good off-the-shelf meshing device. If you truly have the product we are looking for, and you play your cards right, you could have the killer-app for WISPS. (As opposed to the wisp-killer app
)Have you read what Fon is doing? Getting ISP's to bundle 'free hotspots' with their packages. Of course, with limited bandwidth, thats not going to fly in SA. But geez... so many possibilities, such perfect hardware. Yet so much room for improvement in the drivers and networking protocols! Not to mention the business models... and lack of largely useful content. (Freeze me in a time capsule!)