Broadband internet access is, albeit widespread, very expensive in term of infrastructure, the last mile still being not easy to bridge.
While the demand for ubiquitous broadband grows tremendously, Wifi mesh network looks like the best solution to keep up the pace. Indeed, Wifi mesh network deployment is a breeze : communities, hobbyists and municipalities should definitely take a look at this technology to spread internet access everywhere.
More specifically, the “state of the art” WIFI mesh network consists of a bunch of WIFI routers along with a service to manage them remotely ( for billing and network configuration)
A mesh router can act like a gateway or a repeater. The router acting like a gateway is connected to the internet whereas the repeater just conveys the data to the gateway through the best route. That way, a network coverage can be widen just by adding repeaters. The advantages of this mesh solution can be summarized as below:
- low-cost routers: from 49$ up to 900$ for solar powered.
- scalability: network coverage can be improved by adding additional nodes
- reliability: if a node is not functional, another one will take over so as to convey data through another path.
- easy management: server is available to configure and manage the routers, hence the network remotely.
I’ve been buying this technology from two providers with different vision: Meraki and Open-Mesh.
Both Meraki and Open-Mesh provide the routers and the management solution.
Meraki has been my choice for a while since there hosted management services provides everything a network admin needs ( billing, configuration, update, stats,..). The Meraki routers are also reliable and beautiful.
However, Meraki has increased their price and their cheapest router is at 149$ ( compared to 50$ before !). Also, the routers are tied to their hosted management service such that the network admin has no choice as to which software runs in the routers. That’s why I’ve opted lately for the Open-Mesh solution which is a no surprise offer. Also, the network admin can host the management server thanks to OrangeMesh, an open source initiative.
As a conclusion, one should look at the open-mesh products especially to lower cost and have a better control over their networks.
Meraki is still the best if one wants a no-brainer solution ( but 3 times more expensive than their open-source counterpart )