Voice Over IP On Wireless Mesh

infractor writes "ZDNet is reporting that the Linux based LocustWorld Mesh system now has SIP routing at every node. The LocustWorld boxes have been widely used in community broadband projects where DSL is not available, so successfully that they have been seen as a threat to next generation mobile networks. With the addition of VoIP support, these mesh networks can now compete with the telcos on voice as well as data services. More details here."

Comments

Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[mindless4210]

With the addition of VoIP support, these mesh networks can now compete with the telcos on voice as well as data services.

I would have to disagree with that comment. Yes, these networks can now provide voice services, but they cannot effectively compete. In reality, wireless VoIP is still being developed and will most likely not be of acceptable quality for another year or so. Mainly, latency is the biggest issue to be conquered at this time. I think until they are able to reduce latency times significantly in these applications, it won't be widely accepted. It's just too frustrating when theres a couple seconds in between speaking and hearing a response from the other person.

Furthermore, while a mesh network can still carry a high data rate, the high number of hops to a wired connection from some locations along the network could make talking over VoIP rather unbearable. I imagine that on a larger mesh network you could experience latency upwards of 1000 ms.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[LOL WTF OMG!!!!!!!!!]

Mainly, latency is the biggest issue to be conquered at this time.

I live in Los Angeles and communicate with an FWD SIP with which I call a conference in Japan almost daily. Latency with that is very low, and that's with a free service!

I really don't latency is the problem as much as it is making the technology easier to use for the average joe ( X-Lite is NOT easy to set up if you have router ).

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[BlueShad0w]

And on top of that, the idea of technically free VoIP calls won't go down well with the sevice providers. I can't imagine them NOT lumping enough service charges on top to make it totally unfeasible to home users, whereas the 'read more' article seems to be aimed at just those people.

Let me stick with my MSN (*awaits flames*) voice conversations with people I know

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[JoScherl]

I really don't latency is the problem as much as it is making the technology easier to use for the average joe ( X-Lite is NOT easy to set up if you have router ).

Does Joe have a router? I think not. Ok, thanks to DSL-Lines, at least here in Germany, many people get routers, but still I don't think Joe Average has one. The greater problem is that a) Joe dosn't know about it and b) he doesn't know anybody else who uses the same VoIP system. To make use from VoIP it would imho need one big company advertising these services, but I think the ISPs do not like VoIP 'cause it creates huge amount of traffic

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine them NOT lumping enough service charges on top to make it totally unfeasible to home users,

Assuming they can easily discriminate against VoIP traffic. If VoIP implementation is designed properly, they probably can not; but it really depends on design.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[mc6809e]

I live in Los Angeles and communicate with an FWD SIP with which I call a conference in Japan almost daily. Latency with that is very low, and that's with a free service!

But your situation is unlikely to be the most common.

Being on the west coast, you're probably just a few hops from a trans-Pacific link directly to Japan. You have what amounts to a nearly direct link from one place to another.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[PretzelBat]

So long as this is internet to internet there is no service fee.

However, this sort of thing, if it becomes common, could quite possibly lead to a tragedy of the commons. If everyone actually started using all the bandwidth they had available, the networks would become jammed quickly enough.

Free VOIP is great in the short-term, but there is *not,* at this point, an unlimited amount of free bandwidth available.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[kennybain]

In the real world, this isn't the case. You have multiple uplinks into the "wired" interent, so you are only going 3 or 4 hops into the mesh. Ping times to the internet never exceed 100ms on a properly designed mesh network. I use Packet8 over my network... http://www.fastlineinternet.com , we are the first US deployment of the LocustWorld system. So this is a voice of experience.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[mc6809e]

Ping times to the internet never exceed 100ms on a properly designed mesh network.

So, that means we have to add 100 ms latency to everthing, right?

That's already getting close to the edge of what is considered tolerable.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[kennybain]

No, you only add about 3 ms of latency to each hop. 100ms would be absurd. I have gamers, VoIP, web surfing, and yes the dreaded PtP... all peacefully co-existing!

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[LOL WTF OMG!!!!!!!!!]

I agree with you on most of that. However, MANY people have routers. Essentially anybody who has a broadband line and more than one computer.

And routers these days are generally easy to use. CompUSSR sells one for $20 with a nice web interface and very easy instructions.

However, the fact remains that most VoIP software has horrific problems when working with a router. Whether this is problems with most routers handling UDP, or just bad programming is something that's beyond me.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[aminorex]

Well, it's not like VOIP takes up any more bandwidth
than PSTN. If I'm calling you on a VOIP phone,
I'm *not* calling you on a PSTN phone. The difference
in backbone traffic on the fiber is negligible, but
the difference to my wallet is significant.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[azuretek]

I work for a cable company, I'd say about 70% of the people that call have routers even if they only have one computer. Most people with routers dont know exactly what they do, in fact that's probably the reason there are so many unsecure access points.

VoIP has companies advertising and it's becoming more popular as well as usable.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize, of course, that the link from the west coast to Japan introduces a HUGE lag, right? It's just the nature of a hop that is thousands of miles long. If I remember the length of my SFO to Tokyo flight, it was somewhere over 10k miles. The lag from here to Japan is probably larger than the lag introduced from east to west coast on a good network.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

My PBX provider sells the Symbol wireless VoIP phone as a standard product. I have a couple on my wireless network. They just work. You don't know what you're talking about. VoIP is here, usable, and mature. People put up with early cell phones without complaint--admit it they sucked.

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[asadsalm]

To which PULVER responds:

"Dont mesh with me you insensitive clod!"

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...

[JoScherl]

I'd say about 70% of the people that call have routers even if they only have one computer

Maybe it's just that the ones without a router have less problems. ;-)

Where's the beef?

[Brento]

If it supports SIP, it's not obvious from their downloads. Their ISOs haven't been updated since 2002...

Re:Where's the beef?

[AndroidCat]

There's some newer files at their high capacity mirror (Haven't checked them over yet.)

Re:Where's the beef?

[Cheeze]

i see 2/10/2004 on the latest build on their ftp site.

Quality

[lukewarmfusion]

Compete? Maybe not. Remember when NPR discussed this and one of the callers started having problems - right in the middle of his praise for VoIP?

That said, I'm anxious to find an inexpensive way to replace my $90 cell, $50 broadband cable, and $40 landline. If I can cut these bills down significantly (by using my broadband to provide my landline) I'd be happy. And I'd bet that most bill-paying consumers would be too.

Re:Quality

[YanceyAI]

They manage to allow us to consolidate those, along with the idea of the single multimedia device, then I'm happy. Very.

Re:Quality

[iminplaya]

The only thing being consolidated is ownership of the pipe. There is no competition. The phone company buys the cable company which buys the ISP. Pretty soon GE (General Electric) owns it all.

Re:Quality

[Oaffy]

I use my cable for my landline and it work great. I have a little white box that sits behind my TV that plugs in to my phone jack. Works just like a regular line and cost half the price of the bells. And my cable company cuts me a deal; I get digital cable, phone, and cable Internet for $90 dollars a month. I love having 1 bill and a small one at that!!

Re:Quality

[YanceyAI]

Dont you mean "The Network." While Running Man scencarios are scary, whats scary is the tempation for totally consolidated systems.

Imagine:

You're watching the game. Your mother-in-law buzzes in. A little picture-in-picture appears. She thinks she's got your full attention, but in reality you're glued to the last play of the game! Brilliant. Hell maybe you've got another 'lindow' open where you're updating your online wager. Evil, but sexy.

Re:Quality

[ytseschew]

You also need reliability. My cable modem usually goes out for a couple hours every couple months. This past week it was out 3 times while they did "service upgrades." On the other hand my phone line has been out exactly 1 time in 4 years and only because a telephone pole was knocked down right near my house. My power has gone out a number of times but that never knocked out the phone service. I can't even remember having the phone service going out at my previous location. Having my landline phone go down is so rare that it's like a surreal event. Until my internet service comes close to that kind of reliability I'll be sure to keep a landline around.

- Steve

Re:Quality

[John Barnette]

How 'bout Vonage? I'm thinking about trying 'em out.

Re:Quality

[grahamsz]

I used Vonage for about a year and a half when i lived in the UK and I was VERY impressed.

I had a job and fiancee in the USA, and vonage gave me a local number there and unlimited calling for about the same a british telecom charged for an hour long call each month.

Now the situation is flipped, I'm in the USA and need to call family and friends in the UK. I just converted my old vonage hardware to run with mywebcalls.com and i can get cheap calls the other way.

I called my mom yesterday using voip for the frist time, and without prompting she mentioned that the call was unusually clear.

Of the different voip services i've used, vonage was by far the easiest to set up and use, but unless you make a lot of calls their monthly charge outweighs most cell plans.

This is precisely

[iminplaya]

the kind of "wireless internet" that I have been babbling about in other threads. This is what can liberate us from corporate control of internet access. I want to see this "wireless cloud" cover the planet. The latency issues will be worked out. In the meantime, this is great for "little" community internets where latency is not that bad. Even if they can't access the net at large, they can communicate, completely free from interference from the gov't, with each other. Maybe (hopefully) it can bring about completely anonymous, untracable communications. Just because it's not codified into law, anonymity is a right, and anything that can bring it about is a good thing.

Re:This is precisely

[volkris]

Just because it's not codified into law, anonymity is a right

Really?
Justify this statement, please.

Re:This is precisely

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate telcoms spend billions on building fat intercontinental pipes to give people high bandwisth and low latency. That kind of bandwidth and latency cannot be achieved using a wireless mesh, where every hop is 100m.

Re:This is precisely

[burns210]

cache... smart cacheing systems... your local node, the nodes that route info, all over. A smart cacheing system will largely make up for lag on a very large mesh network....

Also, zerconf(apple's rondezvous) does a lot of thigns we should be using... auto-assigning ips, and discovery, easy setup...

IPv6, more addresses, better inherit security....

TCP: that competition that made TCP uber-fast by tweaking it's algorythm... fastTCP, that has articles on /. every once in a while....

The next version of TCP/IP and zeroconf to auto-assign node info.... god, this could be geek heaven.

Re:This is precisely

[evilviper]

I want to see this "wireless cloud" cover the planet.

Okay then... Are YOU going to be the one sailing one of the boats needed, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with nothing but an 802.11 access point onboard to relay signals from contient to contient?

Even if they can't access the net at large, they can communicate, completely free from interference from the gov't, with each other.

Yeah! They couldn't do that before with telephones, postal mail, wireless radios, smoke signals, et al., right?

Maybe (hopefully) it can bring about completely anonymous, untracable communications.

Even if this idea was feasable, it's very unlikely it would be untracable. In fact, it would probably be MORE easily tracable.

anonymity is a right

I'm sure a great many people don't agree with you there.

Re:This is precisely

[iminplaya]

Are YOU going to be the one sailing one of the boats needed...

Buoys? Bouys? Those little floaty things used for navigations...

They couldn't do that before with telephones, postal mail...

Yes, but now encryption is easier. Actually, with all the noise already in the system, it's getting even easier to hide messages, and with wireless, it can be made harder to trace(think constantly changing IP addy's, in a spread spectrum kind of way, and the simple fact that you're mobile, like a scud launcher)

It doesn't matter if people agree that anonymity is a right. Screw them. I just want to see it made technically possible. I will contribute what I can to that end, so that absolutely nobody can take it away no matter what their opinion may be.

Re:This is precisely

[iminplaya]

That kind of bandwidth and latency cannot be achieved using a wireless mesh, where every hop is 100m.

People used to say that man would never fly. The things I speak of are possible. We just don't know how, yet.

Re:This is precisely

[evilviper]

Buoys? Bouys? Those little floaty things used for navigations...

And how do you plan to power these buoys? Solar isn't powerful enough yet, and if you run a generator, somebody is going to have to go refuel them all the time.

It doesn't matter if people agree that anonymity is a right. Screw them. I just want to see it made technically possible.

I think most everyone will agree that postal mail can be as anonymous as you want it to be. You could even use PGP to encrypt the contents if you like.

so that absolutely nobody can take it away no matter what their opinion may be.

That's the single biggest problem with wireless. Anybody can spend a few bucks and build a powerful signal jammer that will just destroy all wireless networks in the area.

Re:This is precisely

[iminplaya]

And how do you plan to power these buoys?

Those things roll around a lot. Something like the self winding mechanism in a watch, only big?

Anybody can spend a few bucks and build a powerful signal jammer that will just destroy all wireless networks in the area.

Curses...foiled again...back to the lab, pinky...I'll get back to you on that. I hope jammers will be easy to find, even in the cloud. Maybe, due to it's power level? or how the signal is modulated? All that work they're doing with active noise cancelling works for RF also...I hope.

Re:This is precisely

[evilviper]

Those things roll around a lot. Something like the self winding mechanism in a watch, only big?

It's been tried, it just doesn't provide enough power for much more than a dim lightbulb.

You also have wind power generation, which would be good on the sea where there's no obstructions, but I still don't believe it would be windy enough to provide (just) several dozen watts of power all day.

I hope jammers will be easy to find, even in the cloud. Maybe, due to it's power level?

Well, jammers will be like spammers... The simplest methods for jamming will be easily tracable, but it won't take long before more advanced methods will start being used that could be very hard to trace, but disruptive enough that they will make wireless useless.

Besides, even if they only do simple jamming, who's going to stop them the old-fashioned way? Cops aren't going to be interested in comming out to find who is responsible, and certainly wouldn't do it in a timely manner. With no company behind this, who is going to fund all of these things that have to be handled?

All that work they're doing with active noise cancelling works for RF also...I hope.

I sincerely doubt that. Just because sound is canceled out and you can't hear it, doesn't mean it's not there, and isn't effecting other sounds.

Spread spectrum seems potentially promising, but all that really does is require a more advanced and much more powerful jammer, since it has to muck with signals that might be broadcasting on any number of frequencies.

Re:This is precisely

[iminplaya]

Heh...just after posting that, I was thinking that all that crap on Star Trek about shield "frequency and modulation" actually has a meaning or purpose here. We will encounter more RF weaponry as time goes on, and we're going to need more than tin foil to protect ourselves.

Cops aren't going to be interested in comming out to find who is responsible...

The cops will probably most likely be the people responsible for putting UP the jammers. The gov't doesn't like P2P communications without going through one of their "check points"(phone company, ISP, etc.)

If the jammer can be "masked out", could that work?

Re:This is precisely

[evilviper]

If the jammer can be "masked out", could that work?

About the only possible way to block all types of signal jammers is to build an aluminum dome around them, that is connected to a large groundind rod with high gauge cables. Good luck!

my greatest dream

[ericbrow]

I've always thought that this should be. Wouldn't it be great if wireless networking were as easy to come by as electricty, but without the wires.

I know it's a little communistic in thinking, but I really believe that to gain true freedom of information, we need to make the information superhighway free to use.

While I know many problems would have to be worked out, like security, but it would change everything. Imagine every student being able to turn in assignments anywhere. Imagine doctors being able to monitor patients real-time, as they were being rushed to the emergency room. Yes it would put the telcos and cable companies in an uproar. But I think that would be the price of progress.

Re:my greatest dream

[cavebear42]

There should be a mod:
-1 (used phrase "information superhighway")

Re:my greatest dream

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

And a mod -1 (or +1) "buzzword intolerant"

Re:my greatest dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually wireless networks will work like cell phones. It's called WiMax. It will cost money, but so does electricity, and will probably be regulated, just like electric power.

Re:my greatest dream

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't heard that term in years. Brings a nostalgic tear to my eye...

Re:my greatest dream

[o1d5ch001]

How the hell can the Internet be free?! I have worked in the Internet industry for a long time (10+ years) and I know for a fact that circuits, routers, staff cost lots and lots of money. You know, another word for communist is thief... you want someone else to pay for your internet connection.

Queue up Lawyers and Lobbyists

[rock_climbing_guy]

Let's set up a queue for all the lawyers and lobbyists for Cingular and Nokia to try to get a bunch of stupid laws passed to tariff / cripple this technology.

Re:Queue up Lawyers and Lobbyists

[Adriax]

We could do the goverment a favor by setting up an e-mail account for them to send their complaints and bill proposals to. /dev/null@someplace.com

So..

[bigattichouse]

question is, will it "all" eventually be one big mesh out there? I imagine the telcos will do what they can to stop it, but I could see mass mesh adoption as an incredible force to recon with.

Re:So..

[evilviper]

question is, will it "all" eventually be one big mesh out there?

I can't imagine how. It's just too fragile. Anyone can knock-out a large segment of a wireless network, and without some money behind it, who is going to try and make sure it doesn't happen, or that it's stopped right away?

And then there's the question of who is going to be the one to pay to setup and operate the relays in the middle of long hauls where you won't find any computers otherwise.

And there's always the fun part of having the one guy that's acting as a relay for a large subnet shut down his computer?

Personally, I like wireless very much as a community thing. Now, for free, you could share your huge file library (music, movies, programs, distros) to anybody within a mile (or more) of your location with great speed. If you get a dozen people in your location that all have 802.11 cards, and actively download, that could mean a huge ammount of data going around, painlessly. And it would actually do the opposite of the internet, it would give that information local focus, instead of having your audience scattered around the globe.

Sign me up!

[BlueShad0w]

Great! Now find me a way to get my electricity via wireless and I can be totally independant!

Re:Sign me up!

[Chiasmus_]

Great! Now find me a way to get my electricity via wireless and I can be totally independant!

Oh, wireless electricity isn't really that difficult... it can be acheived through a microwave beam.

The real trick is coming up with wireless electricity that doesn't fry anyone alive who wanders into the path of that beam...

Re:Sign me up!

[iminplaya]

Well, if you're near some powerlines, you can always roll up a fatty...er...I mean a really huge inductor coil. :-) Otherwise, I think that guy Tesla had some ideas on that.

Re:Sign me up!

[jdray]

Okay, this is off topic, but actually, while I wouldn't recommend STANDING in the path of a wireless power transmission, walking through the path shouldn't affect a person too much. The cell phone, PDA, digital watch, pager, digital camera, laptop, pocket calculator or other nifty gadget might have issues if they're not well shielded, but the human body shouldn't.

This link is a summary paper of information from a variety of sources on Solar Power Satellites. This one has a couple pictures of a test in California.

Dell use VoIP for their Indian call centers

[Anonymous Coward]

5 second pause...

Hello, my name is Bob Thandushepatindiar how may I help you?

5 second pause....

My computar's borken! Help.

5 second pause...

I understand your unhappiness.

5 second pause....

I said my COMPUTAR'S BORKEN!

5 second pause...

Thank you, come again.

Latency my ass

[www.fuckingdie.com]

Latency is not a problem as far as I am concerned. I use FWD on a regular basis, and have never ran into a major issue making even ultra long distance calls. (This includes peak time calling, which has never given me trouble.)

Re:Latency my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Every wireless hop adds a bunch of latency to the connection. Not so bad if you're 2-3 away, but if you're 10 away, it'll be hell.

Re:Latency my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, well I make mega-ultra X-treme long distance calls all the time, and I'll have you know that the 1/100 sec delay is too much for a super-important guy like me.

Re:Latency my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

With this current hodge podge of a wifi card and Linux, sure. For this technology to be adopted, we'll probably have to get a generation furher, to a wireless chip with a packet buffer and minimal software built in. My current employer builds something like this, and I know Atheros has a new WiFi SOC chipset for wireless with a MIPS processor and memory built in.

Our current product adds only a few (under 10) ms a hop, FWIW.

community projects are poorly organized

[Anonymous Coward]

and can't compete with corporate projects.

WVoIP taking over Wireless (Mobile)

[UID1000000]

I've been thinking about this same thing just recently. From what I understand http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/13/20 43202&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=137&tid= 215 that VoIP still isn't the most reliable thing in the world. There are a few things from a business stand point that will keep WVoIP from overtaking the mobile market, although this is perfectly tempting.

Here are a few of the reasons:

• The number of flaws and hacks that are readily available for switches, routers, and hubs and the fact that the OSes that run these appliances are too vunereable (think M$).
• The fact that the system isn't proprietary. I understand that there are ways to make a wireless network prop by MAC translation, etc.
• Handsets, currently there aren't any handsets available nor anybody in the market who wants to make them

Well, these are just a few thoughts. I know that there are many other insights as to what might make this industry grow.

Currently, to me, it seems like a lot of the open public widespread wireless networks tend to be international countries (not America) and they tend to be home grown by some geeks.

Represent a business model that would cost billions to setup and would still have to have willing hardware developers to make it happen and let me know what capital investors are interested.

Re:WVoIP taking over Wireless (Mobile)

[grahamsz]

To counter your arguments

Hacks do exist for VoIP systems but these dont seem to be any more widespread than other network applications. People still use FTP and SMTP despite their atrocious security records

An open standardized system is one of the best things about it. I can take my stock VoIP hardware and (in theory) make it work with any number of providers

Cisco make nice little boxes which have CAT5 in and Telephone out, Grandstream make real phones with CAT5 connections, someone even makes phones which dial out to your ISP and then use VoIP to make calls.

The hardware exists, an excellent open-source exchange exists, and i've been using it daily for almost 2 years.

Re:WVoIP taking over Wireless (Mobile)

[UID1000000]

Good point to each of those items.

What about hardware? I'm talking about load balancers, servers, and phone sets? Let's suppose you roll something like this out to a community, what would they have to have to support it? Probably a server with a 1Gb backbone right? Something to handle all of the traffic too. Then they'll need hardware for the phone replacement.
Or it could be offered as a notebook/PDA based software that you use to make your calls.

Re:WVoIP taking over Wireless (Mobile)

[grahamsz]

Well each device can be set to periodically configure itself by TFTP. That can then balance the load just by dividing the users up across your servers.

Typically you need somewhere between 32 (cell phone like) and 96 kbit/s (better than pots) quality call. However that's the peak bandwidth, at least half the call will be silence (while the other party talks) so you can survive with as little as 16kbit/s average.

A T3 should be able to support about 2800 low fi calls or almost 1000 hi fi calls. But not everyone will be calling at the same time... and also, most of the calls will be local so you wont need outbound bandwidth.

voip in actual use

[Anonymous Coward]

VOIP is great, but outside the cities it really
doesn't cut it. That's where the market is though.

I've used some VOIP implementations in less than
ideal conditions and there is a lot of work to
be done before this is ready for prime time.

Not a coder ? Want to help spread Linux ? Click here !

community projects are poorly organized

[Anonymous Coward]

and can't compete with corporate projects.

corporate projects are anti-social

[Anonymous Coward]

and by their very nature take more than they give

Re:SAY IT WITH ME, COCKSMOKERS

[SCOFeeTroll'sLawyer]

I must ask you to cease and desist with your usage of that phrase. It is a registered trademark of the SCO$699FeeTroll.

Thank you,
SCOFeeTroll's Lawyer

Injecting harsh realities

[PureFiction]

The code is there, the actual performance is going to be lackluster at best.

Mesh networks suffer from scaling problems due to the overhead associated with ad-hoc protocols. All that flexibility and adaptability come at a price: efficiency, latency and throughtput all decrease as the size of the mesh increases (and even more so when you have popular / power law nodes attracting routes)

Voice is notoriously sensitive to delay and to some degree packet loss. Sure, delay effects can be overblown (ATM anyone?) but you get a saturated mesh network trying to route voice and those multi-second round trip times are going to make your cable modem look like a T3.

[You get losses due to interference, transient link problems, mobile nodes, sun spots, whatever, that cause delays at the physical layer (an ethernet frame takes a while to traverse the ether) which then affects all higher layer protocols: UDP packets can't be reassembled because a fragment is lost. TCP starts backing off too agressively. Retransmission timers get triggered adding to inefficiencies, the list goes on]

Wireless and mesh networking in particular are very promising and useful technologies, but they are no where near the utopia that is often presented.

Trivial DoS attacks, scalability problems, and compounded complexity all add up to make it a very volatile environment.

Sure, this stuff will work, but only in very constrained configurations / environments.

Maybe someday further in the future these dreams can be realized when we have robust MIMO software radios and intelligent network stacks that can adapt to such harsh conditions. :-)

Re:Injecting harsh realities

[kennybain]

Actually, you are only partially right. Traditional mesh networks, such as the one that MIT has been working on, require routing tables that grow (exponentially) each time a new node is added to the mesh. However, you should read up how LW has solved those issues. From the LW website: "As each mesh node is autonomous, discovering routes on demand, there is no central control to act as a bottle neck. As the network grows the routing task for each node does not grow exponentially, as they only build routes to the resources that they need. Routes are established on demand, and un-used routes are flushed out after a short time."
(Read complete article)

Re:Injecting harsh realities

[AndIWonderIfIWonder]

Indeed, the biggest problems with adhoc mesh routing protocols are unidirectional links and routes needing to be reformed due to mobile nodes. Fortunatly the kind of mesh networks locustworld are dealing with will be fixed so there are no mobile nodes, and unidirectional links can probably be dealt with.

Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a router. Everyone I know with a net connection has some type of router. Probably because we all have more than 1 computer, but it's not uncommon.

I've tried quite a few VoIP programs, and all of them have problems with routers. Last week I ran across Skype. All I can say is wow. Crystal clear sound, works through the router / firewall without changing a thing. No studder, "CB" effect, etc. and the sound quality is better than my phone.

It's currently in beta, and will most likely have a fee associated with it in the future, but grab it and give it a shot. There's even a PDA version for wireless PDA's. Digging through the site I found something that referenced checking back soon for linux and mac ports.

http://www.skype.com

Wireless vs. Fiber vs. Commercial vs. Govt

[billstewart]

Wireless clouds are cute and friendly and don't have really huge bandwidth (though I'm one of those old-timers who remembers when 56kbps *was* really huge bandwidth :-). Fiber optic pipes *do* have really huge bandwidth, and most of the locations you want to talk to are connected to them, and if you want your community wireless network to do anything useful, you're going to need to tie them together, typically using the wireless for local access and maybe cross-town access and using ISPs for long-haul backbones. You might tie into them by buying big-ISP service at some points (e.g. if you're a non-zero-cost cooperative), or community members who have friendly DSL ISPs like Sonic and Speakeasy might share their bandwidth, or you might be part of a commercial local wireless net such as Sonic.net's Sonoma County rooftop networks. The more complex and mobile your network, the harder it is to get routing right.

Interference from the government is a relatively orthogonal problem. There are several different kinds you can run into, including

• Government-run or government-mandated private companies providing local telecom or cable services that restrict what you do with your access. Wireless access that doesn't use these services usually avoids this problem, though you're still connected to a longhaul provider at some point. In some countries, it's not that easy - even though most of the world has "telecom liberalization" now, there are still usually some restrictions on competing with The Phone Company.
• Government-mandated fees (like Universal Service Gore Tax, access charges for the privilege of connecting your phone line to long distance (even if you only use it for DSL, not voice), etc. that you avoid by not using the government-supported telcos as access providers.
• Wiretapping on your data connections: Wirelesstapping is often easier to implement, but wiretappers know where the phone company buildings are, and can often bully the telco into implementing the wiretaps and passing along the cost in their rate base. Either way, if you don't use encryption, you're tappable. The US FBI is trying to expand the current regulations that let them wiretap voice calls to cover all ISPs as well as traditional phone companies, because they want the expanded power, expanded lack of accountability, and ability to force other people to pay the costs of their habit.
• Even if you're using encryption, wirelesstappers (or wiretappers, if you're going somewhere far enough away to need wire) can show which IP addresses are talking to which other IP addresses. That means that unless you're using encrypted tunnels across the wired space, and/or changing your IP address for every connection in ways that aren't logged, you're not going to get much anonymity. Building Anonymity is hard work.
• Wiretaps on voice calls - if you're using a gateway from IP SIP space into the Public Switched Telephone Network, that gateway can be wiretapped just like any other phone call. The big difference is that the gateways don't have to be located in the same jurisdiction as you are, though for cost reasons they're usually located near the recipient. That means that if you're IP-phoning one of your non-IP-telephony-equipped neighbors to plan next month's anti-war protest, your local police Red Squad can get a court order to wiretap your neighbor's phone, and John Ashcroft can get an unaccountable back door into the VOIP gateway in your area code -- but if you're IP-phoning one of your friends in another state to come speak, your local police can't tap you, because the gateway isn't in their territory, and they probably won't do the paperwork to get a tap on your friend unless you call them a lot. If you're calling somebody in Palestine to come speak, the NSA / GHCQ Echelon wiretappers might be listening, and Mossad or Shin Bet might also be listening, but that's both on the far end.
• .... many other forms of interference I haven't thought of - add your own ...

Like Air Supply, this could be big in Asia

[pangian]

The only place that my organization considers VoIP is in our offices in developing countries.

In many developing countries landlines simply aren't a viable option due to underresourced, corrupt and/or incompetent state-owned telecoms. Many of these countries have been able to develop more robust cell and broadband services, as these industries have seen less regulation and are more scaleable.

For security, convenience and efficiency reasons we like to provide staff in these offices with cell phones, however cell phones plans in may still leave much to be desired in some countries.

I think that many of our offices would be interested in VoIP cell phones if the coverage was decent (even covering major cities might be > or = to existing cell networks). Latency in phone conversations is already par for the course.

Could be an interesting microenterprise project.

looks pretty cool...but....

[zogger]

...but.. I am fresh out of 30,000$ bills for the startup hardware glancing at the page for the suppliers, then the recurring T-1 connection, and even if I had that, I could wirelessly connect to ..myself! There's so little interest in my little locale for even dialup it's amazing. I might be the only one online as far as I know in a mile or so distance up and down the street. So far, I estimate that at least 1/2 or more of my neighbors don't even have a landline phone. I wouldn't even bother trying to drum up interst in this, I'd have to get 30 people at a grand apiece or something to chip in to start it up. Ain't happening.

This looks *really good* for urban areas and some wealthier higher density suburban areas, and even high income rural areas (resort or retirement communities, etc), but for straight low dollar sign "rural" brand sticks with a lot of range to cover and not many people and most of them poor, nope. Just costs too much.

Great project, I wish them well, don't see it anytime soon in the still huge land areas that don't have broadband. some isolated places especially with local government support, sure, then it might be doable. If they can get the hardware costs down drastically some how, or someone can come up with some easy to implement/build home made gear (beyond a pringles can), and if the broadband line needed can be afforded for the hardwired AP, then it might fly in more areas. Or, really,perhaps I am just corn-fused here (happens daily, I am used to it) am I missing something? I looked at the prices for all the jazz the US supplier has, am I wrong, or do ya need like one of each of these doo dads, plus some antennas up high, plus some sort of hardwired broadband connection? Or am I just not understanding this correctly?

Latency on Wireless; East of Use and NAT.

[billstewart]

Latency on the wireless part of a connection and latency on the wired part of a connection are much different issues, and the whole VOIP and Video-over-IP world is riddled with mythology about latency. If you've got an ISP connection with decent trunking and your uplink isn't heavily loaded, the biggest components of your latency between LA and Japan are the distance to Japan (which regular phone calls also have) and the sampling time of your codec. But if you're sharing an overloaded community wireless LAN that takes six hops through random users' PCs (anything from laptops to PDAs to Fuzzballs to 5GHz-P4s running Genome@Home) to arrive at a 384/128 ADSL connection that's competing with the Mandrake BitTorrrent and three P2P music sharing networks, you'll get a lousy connection to someone in the next town.

However, I agree with you that ease of use is the more serious problem - the prevalence of NAT routers has been breaking the Internet End-to-End model to the extent that John Walker pulled his support for Speak Freely, one of the early pioneer VOIP systems. Some closed systems like Skype do supernode things to work around it, commercial systems like Vonage and AT&T use appropriately designed equipment, and some systems limit their support to the PC-to-PSTN direction. It's an ugly mess.

Reality Check

[Effugas]

Er, no.

Mesh networks aren't perfect, but the extreme low bandwidth of voice (8kbps for G.729) relative to the channel capacity makes up for quite a bit. Voice is way more sensitive to packet loss than delay, because almost nobody's implemented error concealment*. You notice the dropped signal on your cell phone way before you notice the absolutely atrocious latency you chug through.

Multisecond RTT doesn't happen on anything but GPRS, and that's because the actual core bandwidth is so slow (well, it's for many reasons, but ultimately ad-hoc networks of this scale are only a couple hops of megabit-class networking).

Ethernet frames move at the speed of light over the aether, and "Layer 1.5" 802.11 retransmission gives up after very few tries. Voice packets don't IP fragment, ever, because they're always way below the 576 minimum MTU size for IP networks. And, with only one absolutely batsh*t exception**, you'll never actually see voice routed over TCP -- you don't care about retransmissions in the voice domain.

Meshes aren't a utopia; they're an opportunity. Much like the Internet itself.

-Dan
www.doxpara.com

* Avaya's VoIP implementation has. Dynamic jitter buffers are ludicrous. Disclosure: I work at Avaya.
** Exception = set tcp window size large enough that you don't actually ever need to retransmit. this lets you run voip through a firewall that's only allowing tcp/80, even if the firewall is looking for ACKs. You have to enable window scaling, though :-)

Re:Reality Check

[PureFiction]

Good points. What I meant by latency is that losses in the physical layer result in large latencies at the transport layer (i.e. the 802.11 MAC).

And RTP wont fragment as you mention because of MTU (unless you were doing something really odd with fragmentation at the 802.11 MAC?). I was thinking along the lines of long setup delays for the sessions due to SIP over TCP with larger payloads.

I was a bit harsh on mesh networks. The combination of AODV, DSR, and DSDV is a huge shift in the style of ad-hoc organization and cooperation that makes for a truly useful and individual/community centered approach to communication. It is going to be fun.

I just tend to get a bit annoyed with the grand visions of a nationwide mesh utopia springing up from the bowls of democracy and freedom to release us from the tyranny of Big Co Telecom and whoever else... *grin*

Hmmm, I'm going to avoid discussing security implications of the various protocols for now (that's a whole other can of worms I'm sure you are well familiar with)

Trust and security in decentralized networks makes the security problems of the enterprise look appealing in comparison :-)

Re:Reality Check

[PureFiction]

I'll shut up after this, promise. :-)

Multisecond RTT doesn't happen on anything but GPRS

I've seen it far too often on congested wifi networks. you easily get into a congested state with a crowded AP that forces lots of client waits for the DCF (i.e DIFS + padding, each in turn) and also induces lots of retransmission at the physical level due to collision with so many clients trying to talk to the same AP. Low power clients associated at the 1 or 2 Mbps rates drive this contention over the DCF even higher, severely punishing everyone associated.

The big conference venues are notoriously bad about this, as you often end up with 10-20+ people associated with a single access point. That is just too many, and the 802.11 MAC was never meant to handle that kind of load efficiently. It is a pretty good solution for the general case that simply can't cover all the edge cases (long shots, high client loads, noisy RF environments).

This type of situation results in really weird ping times, for example. I've seen fluctuations myself that go from 80ms, 120ms to 3s!, 2s!, etc. then back down to a few score milliseconds. That is the 802.11 MAC trying to cope with scenario's it was never designed to encounter.

I mentioned software radios in the first post because having access to timing and congestion control in the MAC would allow mesh boxes, clients, and AP's to make very significant performance enhancements for situations where they were needed. Why be forced to use a static, inflexible, proprietary hardware layer when you can have the open flexibility associated with software radio? (It's coming, just not soon enough :-) There are also extensions to the ad-hoc routing protocols (like passive monitor of route info between other clients in DSR) that could be supported if only the hardware was open enough to do so.

I don't want to bitch too much; we have come a long way from sub-megabit data via FHSS over 900Mhz. I just want the really good stuff to hurry up and get here already so that things like mesh networks, low latency/loss voice over IP, and highly available multipath/redundant network configurations can be enjoyed to their full potential. (software radio + multiple input / multiple output + intelligent network stacks that can handle a diverse and volatile network environment). ... and a pony!

Gratuitous links:
congestion problems at TechEd conference

congestion melt down at CeBIT

GNU Radio's software defined radio (SDR)

software defined radio on $2,000 of 'roids [it's a dev kit, but would work very well for almost any kind of project]

Re:Reality Check

[Effugas]

Wow. Very cool. I was unaware of this particular failure mode for 802.11. I would have assumed that the exponential TCP backoffs would have slowed down the incoming packet rates enough for the system to eventually slow down to some reasonable rate ... I bet, to some extent, hidden node played a _big_ factor here too.

Still, I'm amazed you saw not dropped packets, but the MAC hold onto stuff for thousands of ms. Wow.

You know, the newest Linux wireless drivers have moved _everything_ into software -- thus the ability to throw up an AP on demand. I've actually got an amusingly demented protocol hack that would address some of these shortcomings, quite transparently...any interest in collaborating? Send me an email.

--Dan

Re:Reality Check

[throwaway18]

You know, the newest Linux wireless drivers have moved _everything_ into software -- thus the ability to throw up an AP on demand.

Where can I find out how to do that? I researched this reccently, hostAP only works with cards that have built in support for being a master. I'd like to use cheap cards in routers made from old PC's to act as access points in mesh networks instead of operating in ad-hoc mode. What about the performance issues, will this work on early pentium hardware?

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't think you know what you are talking about. 1) 1000ms you get on a satellite. 2) Fastlineinternet.com uses locustworld and has 23 plus nodes that have a WLAN latency of under 65ms and that is over many many many hops covering many miles! 3) I use the Mesh AP on 3 nodes and a cable modem. I get 30ms latency to west over 3 mesh hops and 85-110ms to the east all from my desert house in Arizona. 4) as long as you have a low latency backhaul or uplink VOIP is very feasible as well as gaming. 5) these mesh nodes add a margin of 3-5ms per hop or node 6) throughput I have tested to 450kbytes/s per node 7) mutiple clients i have had download over 1mbit/s at the same time. 8) uptime of this network has been over 4 months which shows its stable. Problems that i see with this system?? 1) 802.11b is limited to range and los or near-los conditions. You need a really good wireless card that can send and hear 802.11b signals well like a 23db (200mw) Senao or SMC and a 15db Omni to get a great coverage range. Max FCC 802.11b=36db 2) I suspect Upload and download per node can only be 4Mbit-6Mbit Max per node right now which means I would recommend Multiple uplinks/backbone connections say.. a t1 for every 20-40 people being served. Or you can throttle limit bandwidth per user on this system which is really cool. Other than those issues security, compatiblity with 802.11b/g clients, authentication, bandwidth management, webpage, automatic routing, hacked AODV protocol make this system kick ass. Its way better than anything i've tried and or seen. It exists and I encourage everyone to try this system out or at least learn about it before they post something dumb. I think Locustworld.com should open forumns up and release more information so they clear up a lot of misunderstandings. -baked

WiMAX is the answer

[geekee]

When 802.16 is deployed, wireless VoIP phones that are also PDAs will take over, allowing both high speed wireless voice and data links.

Actual measurement of a LW mesh

[Baldrson]

Here are ping times from a mesh node that is 3 hops from the gateway:

PING yahoo.com (66.218.71.114): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=581.611 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=231.480 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=381.342 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=402.864 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=4 ttl=51 time=439.277 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=5 ttl=52 time=412.702 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=6 ttl=51 time=151.642 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=7 ttl=52 time=430.497 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=8 ttl=51 time=444.032 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=9 ttl=52 time=280.485 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=10 ttl=51 time=724.143 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=11 ttl=52 time=92.999 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=12 ttl=51 time=695.740 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=13 ttl=51 time=419.220 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=14 ttl=51 time=737.417 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=15 ttl=52 time=618.897 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=16 ttl=52 time=539.789 ms
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
17 packets transmitted, 17 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 92.999/446.126/737.417/183.842 ms

Here are the ping times from the gateway itself:

PING yahoo.com (66.218.71.114): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=64.234 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=64.491 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=2 ttl=53 time=64.086 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=63.948 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=63.516 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=5 ttl=53 time=65.467 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=6 ttl=53 time=64.871 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=7 ttl=52 time=64.494 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=8 ttl=52 time=64.090 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=9 ttl=52 time=64.252 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=10 ttl=53 time=64.044 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=11 ttl=53 time=67.765 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=12 ttl=53 time=64.428 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=13 ttl=53 time=63.651 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=14 ttl=53 time=64.078 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.114: icmp_seq=15 ttl=53 time=63.852 ms
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
16 packets transmitted, 16 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 63.516/64.454/67.765/0.967 ms

A caveat on these numbers. First, I haven't optimized the mesh for VoIP -- I just got my VoIP equipment in and will be getting around to that shortly. Secondly, I'm running on the mesh myself so these were output to my ssh screen simultaneously from the distant box so the traffic was doubled up.

RFC Correction

[muonzoo]

Of course, RFC2543 as referenced in the parent article is deprecated, the current base SIP RFC(s) can be considered:

1. RFC3261,
2. RFC3262,
3. RFC3263,
4. RFC3264, and;
5. RFC3265.

QoS

[div_2n]

Quality of service is a concern for almost any type of service you get. I have seen people have extreme problems with their landline phone only to discover much later that it was water getting in their line. For a while I could hear other conversations on my landline (not a cordless phone) everytime I placed a call. I could still manage a call but it was hard to ignore.

Any type of wireless service (regardless of type) is subject to serious issues. On my cellphone, I occasionally place or receive calls and I can't hear the person on the other end and they can't hear me. There are places where my calls drop out like clockwork even though a tower is not far away. For a while, my phone would bounce randomly back and forth between a tower very close and very far at my house causing dropped calls and choppy conversations.

I have seen everything from fiber cables stop working inexplicably to wireless point to point shots that should be impossible (that didn't stop us trying) start working hours after the equipment was put in place (and an alternative was being devised) and never have a problem again.

Bottom line is that it doesn't matter what service you have, quality of service is not a guarantee. Some services are certainly more susceptible than others, but none are for certain, period.

Fractal capacity?

[Doc Ruby]

Until now, TCP/IP networks have measured bandwidth in terms analagous to current, the linear impedence. And with traffic and collisions, there have been some measures of viscosity. But these mesh networks' fabric capacity is fractional in dimension: routes are more than linear, but less than areal. What is the fractal capacity of an interconnected network of nodes with certain internode rates? Fractal spaces are enlarged when measured with smaller granularity units. Which protocols developed in the fractal space, rather than HTTP, SIP, even TCP/IP, will better use their fractal capacity?

Re:Wireless VoIP isn't feasible yet...BS

[Anonymous Coward]

1000 ms is a bit overboard, but there's no way there's 65 ms latency over several miles like you're talking about. Also the times you're claiming... no way. I'd say bullshit.

Locustworld User Experiences

[Entity1633]

ask Kennybain for ping times and look at his Vivian network. he will re-confirm what i say is true. As long as you get a good signal and your reciever sends and transmits well You can get very nice, low latency and stable pings between wireless nodes. 65-100ms sounds about right for a huge Mesh WLAN (23-30 nodes several hundred or few thousand meters apart, covering a town) my small mesh wlan pings 3-8ms and spikes at most to 15ms (3 nodes). so with wlan latency of 3-8ms and hardwire uplink latency to internet from 28ms(west)-90ms(east coast) its certainly feasible to run Voip. The mesh system looks for the best signal (db) automatically to route with and that is how lower latency is attained. Me pinging google west server (cable) Reply from 66.102.7.99: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=242 Reply from 66.102.7.99: bytes=32 time=30ms TTL=242 Reply from 66.102.7.99: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=242 Me pinging google west over mesh (1hop) 1.36.76.64@meshbox:~# ping www.google.com PING www.google.akadns.net (66.102.7.99): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 66.102.7.99: icmp_seq=0 ttl=242 time=29.761 ms 64 bytes from 66.102.7.99: icmp_seq=1 ttl=242 time=29.543 ms 64 bytes from 66.102.7.99: icmp_seq=2 ttl=242 time=29.424 ms me pinging google.com over 2 hops mesh 64 bytes from 66.102.7.99: icmp_seq=5 ttl=241 time=35.847 ms 64 bytes from 66.102.7.99: icmp_seq=6 ttl=241 time=32.474 ms 64 bytes from 66.102.7.99: icmp_seq=7 ttl=241 time=34.324 ms latency between mesh nodes 64 bytes from 1.216.248.243: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=3.014 ms 64 bytes from 1.216.248.243: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=3.013 ms 64 bytes from 1.216.248.243: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=3.478 ms EAT IT now for you guys to see what this system can really do =] I'd do a leech test to show you that this system can really do over 450KB/s to each node provided enough uplinks but my cable is crapping out. Locustworld has been testing VOIP for 2 years+ and skype has already been working on the meshap system for many many months. A cheap wifi phone needs to come out now that uses SIP for this to be a very economical and scalable system for both data and voice. Imagine a voip or phone call not dropping because of the mesh's multipoint to multipoint kicking in for you.. the Mesh AP does this for data already so I assume it will do the same for VOIP/SIP. Ex: You lose connection to one node or a node goes out and you still maintain a connection to the 802.11b client. I am working on a Wireless Mesh Based ISP and could use any help possible. http://www.spydernet.org [SpyderNet] is my idea and we use the forumns to talk about the locustworld meshap and how we would impliment business applications. I encourage anyone who wants to know more about the Locustworld system, help me out or just discuss stuff...post on my forumn.

Routers at Joes home

[JoScherl]

I have a router. Everyone I know with a net connection has some type of router. Probably because we all have more than 1 computer, but it's not uncommon.

People who use their computer more for working etc. have routers, that's true. But still I think Joe Averange, in most cases, doesn't have a router.

A conflicting measurement.

[Baldrson]

Another LW mesh provider is getting vastly better latencies and we're not sure why. The nodes in his mesh have greater distances (miles) between them compared to ours (hundreds of yards).

Investigating.

Here are his ping numbers from 3 hops out from the gateway:

PING yahoo.com (66.218.71.113): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=0 ttl=51 time=88.457 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=79.813 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=166.744 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=80.329 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=4 ttl=51 time=80.134 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=5 ttl=51 time=81.072 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=6 ttl=51 time=79.779 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=7 ttl=51 time=79.776 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=8 ttl=51 time=83.908 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=9 ttl=51 time=80.276 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=10 ttl=51 time=195.679 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=11 ttl=51 time=79.377 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=12 ttl=51 time=324.378 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=13 ttl=51 time=80.327 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=14 ttl=51 time=92.348 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=15 ttl=51 time=87.373 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=16 ttl=51 time=102.131 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=17 ttl=51 time=105.833 ms
64 bytes from 66.218.71.113: icmp_seq=18 ttl=51 time=89.242 ms
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
19 packets transmitted, 19 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 79.377/108.262/324.378/59.378 ms

A Self-Contradictory Measurement

[Baldrson]

Here is the latest ping measurement to yahoo from 2 hops out from the gateway on my LW mesh (the mesh has reconfigured itself):

PING yahoo.com (216.109.127.28): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=0 ttl=47 time=104.552 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=167.325 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=2 ttl=47 time=133.283 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=3 ttl=47 time=110.557 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=4 ttl=47 time=107.804 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=5 ttl=47 time=94.099 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=6 ttl=47 time=107.049 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=7 ttl=47 time=139.685 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=8 ttl=47 time=116.716 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=9 ttl=47 time=111.408 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=10 ttl=47 time=87.437 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=11 ttl=47 time=93.897 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=12 ttl=47 time=88.968 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=13 ttl=47 time=88.587 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=14 ttl=47 time=94.912 ms
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
16 packets transmitted, 15 packets received, 6% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 87.437/109.752/167.325/21.523 ms

Here is a ping to yahoo.com from the gateway:

PING yahoo.com (216.109.127.28): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=79.540 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=106.105 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=79.654 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=3 ttl=48 time=80.265 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=4 ttl=48 time=79.312 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=5 ttl=48 time=78.994 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=6 ttl=48 time=80.144 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=7 ttl=48 time=79.177 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=8 ttl=48 time=79.200 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=9 ttl=48 time=80.129 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=10 ttl=48 time=79.017 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=11 ttl=48 time=79.145 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=12 ttl=48 time=79.899 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=13 ttl=48 time=79.077 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=14 ttl=48 time=80.477 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=15 ttl=48 time=79.041 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=16 ttl=48 time=79.047 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=17 ttl=48 time=79.349 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=18 ttl=48 time=80.066 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.127.28: icmp_seq=19 ttl=48 time=80.562 ms
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
20 packets transmitted, 20 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 78.994/80.910/106.105/5.803 ms