Wi-Fi for the masses
sduford on Aug 06 2007 at 4:13 pm | Filed under: Hardware, Mobile Devices, Technology
Here’s an article on a very interesting wireless technology. The company behind this product is called Meraki and their goal is to bring the Internet to the next billion people, mostly in disadvantaged areas where they currently have no access. This kind of technology offers hope for free wireless access almost anywhere in the world within a few short years!
They basically built very cheap WiFi routers that can self-organize into a coherent network. The units that are connected to the Internet act as access points, the tohers act as repeaters to extend the reach of the network. The firmware has been optimized to provide efficient access over limited Internet connections. They say they can support up to 50 users browsing the Net on a single shared DSL connection (as long as no one is playing videos or downloading huge files)!
I will be following this technology closely as I can see it having a big impact on rural Panama.
That’s an interesting idea, but nothing new. There have been numerous attempts from open source people before. What’s different is that this company is selling hardware, while the open source projects provide alternative firmware for the WRT54G router.
More interesting than these quite limited attempts of using WiFi is the Wimax technology. The biggest difference is the range of the signal: kilometers instead of meters.
Oh Wi-Max is very promising, and it is already being rolled-out in Panama. But it is an expensive technology that requires a significant infrastructure to roll-out. And the long-range is only availble with line-of-sight and a directional antenna. When not line-of-sight, the range drops to lss than 1 mile.
The beauty of the Meraki system is that it is very simple (self-configuring) and dirt cheap.