Cisco To Unveil Wireless Mesh Hardware

An anonymous reader writes "CRN is reporting that Cisco will enter the wireless mesh networking fray next week. Since aquiring Airespace Cisco has been working hard to bring their own mesh technology to fruition. The new solution will target businesses who wish to move the traditional Wi-Fi network outside and possibly cover large regions."

Comments

Why hardware?

[hey]

OK, I admit I haven't RTFA but it seems to me that WiFi plus some nice software should make a mesh. Doesn't seem like a hardware thing to me.

Re:Why hardware?

[RingDev]

I attended a future of wireless conference in Madison, WI a few weeks ago, they had a keynote speaker from Cisco who talked about this very technology. The things its hardware can do is impressive. And yes, a lot of it could (and is) taken care of via software. These mesh nodes can detect other nodes and alther their signal strength to improve coverage. They can adapt to cover for another node that has gone down. They can immediatly detect unauthorized access points and alert NetAdmins of a potential security issue. These systems are self contained, you don't need to wire each one to the network, they just need juice except for the gateway which can run off of power over ethernet. No expencive wire pulling. No manual configuration. Just plug it in and go.

-Rick

Re:Why hardware?

[Wesley Felter]

"Mesh hardware" is in fact an 802.11 access point with different firmware.

Re:Why hardware?

[tosspot1]

I find this announcement from Cisco quite puzzelling. It's not really a mesh - more of a star. A true mesh means that each node can talk to many other nodes. In Cisco's proposed solution they have a central node attaching (via 802.11a) to remote nodes in what seems like a star configuration.

In a true mesh topology only one node requires a wired connection, and the traffic can be routed through nodes which attach to this node to nodes further away. If I understand Cisco's idea of a "mesh" the end nodes (the ones in the street lights) etc cannot route anything to any other nodes.

Now the interesting thing is that people have been building mesh networks for a few years now. They take the very inexpensive WRTG54G, and put a linux image on it. From that point on it's a matter of using open source software (available in various shapes and forms) to make this very inexpensive box into a true mesh node.

I think another point which is being lost here is that people (including municipalities) want to roll these things out at low cost. Because nobody wants to pay huge money to access them, and the coverage of an individual node is so small, the cost per access point must be low, and I mean REALLY low (like under $100). Cisco will never provide a solution for these costs - that's just not how they work.

So in the Cisco solution we have to also have a tower, so we can blast out 802.11a signal to all the nodes - also not very desirable. What if we want to cover a few streets and don't have proper line of sight? Suddenly it means multiple towers and escalating costs. A true mesh network hands the signal between adjacent nodes so line of sight isn't always needed to cover an area.

There are people out there rolling out working mesh networks right now, yet we are reading how there is big demand for this "new" technology. Please... Or am I missing something here?

The only problem I see with the existing solutions based on the WRTG54G is that it isn't an outdoor device. What we need is for someone to design a little box with very lower power consumption that can handle outdoor environments, and still keep it as low cost...

Just my two cents' worth.

Re:Why hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect the entire goal is to devalue the term "mesh". Mesh networks are ultimate tools of information communication decentralisation. There's a growing number of places that have mesh networks running P2P, nigh-on uncontrollable except by blanket jamming.... and since they use the same frequencies as ordinary wireless, that would not be popular.

The corporate infofascists do NOT like that.

Re:Why hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I guess you could do it with software...if you want it to SUCK!

MOVE!

- Nick Burns, your company's computer guy

Re:Why hardware?

[MECC]

"The Cisco solution is based on its proprietary Adaptive Wireless Path Protocol, a mesh routing technology designed to allow the wireless network to self-configure, self-optimize, resist interference and network downtime, and reduce network deployment costs"
...
"The Aironet 1500 is priced at $3,999. A kit with an Aironet 1500 access point and equipment for pole-top mounting will sell for $4,645, and a 1500 with a rooftop mounting kit will sell for $4,815, according to the documents."

So much for the 'reducing deployment costs' part...

Re:Why hardware?

[mailseth]

There are people out there rolling out working mesh networks right now, yet we are reading how there is big demand for this "new" technology. Please... Or am I missing something here?

That's why I've been plugging the CU Wireless Network. It is a self organizing mesh that is open source (BSD License). It is one of the first networks to use the HSLS (Hazy Sighted Link State) algorithm.

Re:Why hardware?

[saridder]

Actually it really is a mesh. The "controller" is just for management traffic. All Cisco AP's can now use LWAPP, which let's the AP's get all it's management, configurations and control traffic from a centralized device. This means all security configs, polity configs, etc.. are pre-defined on a controller. No pre-configuring each AP before deployment; you just plug in an AP like you would a light bulb and it works.

On the data plane side, they truly are mesh and can talk to any other device in that mesh.

Re:Why hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only problem I see with the existing solutions based on the WRTG54G is that it isn't an outdoor device."

people already package up WRT-54gs in IP66 weatherproof boxes incoropating high gain panel antenna with power over ethernet and alternative firmware.

See for example http://www.msdist.co.uk/products/wirelessCPE.php

Phil

Re:Why hardware?

[CarpetShark]

Sounds like the difference there is that someone's in charge. It's hard to charge people for the use of a p2p network that they are a primary node in, just like everyone else.

Mesh...

[tradiuz]

Wont there at some point become a serious issue of collisions, noise, and the like if everyone decides to make their own "wireless mesh network"?

Re:Mesh...

[VJ42]

I can se that being a problem if everyone is using the same frequency, but people arn't that stupid...;)

Re:Mesh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wont there at some point become a serious issue of collisions, noise, and the like if everyone decides to make their own "wireless mesh network"?

If there's some kind of karma system, won't there at some point be karma whores making overly obvious posts?

Mesh?

[Quiet_Desperation]

I put some mesh up on a chicken coop once. Had to. The chickens had large talons.

Not sure why anyone would want to network through that.

Other than a chicken, that is, and they don't "network" so much as they "feed".

Cost

[Rinnt]

I'm all for wireless mesh network competition, but do any of you think this could help bring the cost down? I recently had some involvement in a public safety wireless deployment project. As much as I wanted to see mesh happen, it was just simply cost prohibitive. Prices ranged from $75,000 to $150,000 per square mile. And while other solutions are out there, it's hard to get a good signal in rough terrian. The final solution? Private RF with a blazing 33Kbps connection!

Re:Cost

[ninjaadmin]

You got lucky. We got 700Mhz equipment and ultra-super-fast 8k connection.

Re:Cost

[S7urm]

Like any other emerging technology (especially in relation to "high-speed" networking) the initial costs of implementation are always going to be high in comparison to an established media that was rooted into the industry. Any cost for any tech, once industrialized sees immediate turns to meet competetor's pricing. Simple economic thinking would lead one to deduce that while new anything is expenisive, give it time to establish and build a foundation in it's niche, and you'll see price wars.

Remember when having a cell phone was for yuppies and corporate geeks? (my frickin cheapskate dad has one now)

I rest my case

Hmmm...

[Jerry Coffin]

It'll be interesting to see how much different this really is from a cell phone network. Cell phones have already handled (for well over a decade) things like handing an active call off from one access point to the next. Typical wireless networks, by contrast, don't handle this well at all, and until/unless they start to, they'll remain far short of their potential.

Of course, the other direction works as well: cell networks providing faster access. Unfortunately, most cell providers seem (to me) to be shooting themselves in the foot, charging far too high of prices for data access. IMO, they'd be better off trying to maximize market share in this segment by selling the service at near break-even pricing. I did a bit of math a while back, and figured that at least from one provider, each bit of "data" cost something like 5 times as much to transmit as each bit of "voice" -- strange, at least IMO.

--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

Re:Hmmm...

[jacksonj04]

This kinda falls back to the fact that cell networks are not packet data networks by design. Adding data routing capacity took quite a lot of working out, because instead of only assigning you a cell address (your SIM card provides this bit) the system also had to pair you to an IP address and then route that with another layer to abstract your IP from the towers to ensure packets actually reached the tower your phone was paired with at the time.

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mesh networks and cellular networks, while they aim for the same blanket-coverage goal, are totally different architectures.

The point of a mesh network is that not all the nodes in the mesh need a dedicated internet connection -- the packets from one node are routed along the mesh of peer wireless nodes until they reach an uplink/outside-world connection.

In cellular, each tower has to have its own backhaul connection -- lots of voice circuits, some data lines -- and each client device ("phone") connects only with the tower. In mesh networking, the "tower" and the "phone" are sort of merged -- every device has power, a radio, and some intelligence about how to get packets through the web of friendly meshed devices. A hypothetical mesh cell-phone tower would extend its range to out-of-range devices by routing the call from phone to phone, all within range of each other, until it reached a phone in range of the tower. Your phone would be used for other people's calls.

Whether the mesh architecture has a practical advantage over cellular-style base-station-with-clients has yet to be seen. In fluid situations like disaster relief, battlefields, temporary office setups, etc where it isn't possible or doesn't make sense to establish extensive permanent infrastructure, mesh networking can really outshine the wire-every-base-station approach. But for more permanent setups? Hard to say.

Re:Hmmm...

[caluml]

Cell phones have already handled (for well over a decade) things like handing an active call off from one access point to the next.

That's because the phone companies manually program in "adjacencies" - which cells are near to what. It's not the handset that says "I can see Cell 1241, I'm going to move" - it's the phone company's network that tells the phone to move.
WiFi is a lot more ad-hoc - you can't just put up a new cell on a phone network, and expect it to work.

Re:Hmmm...

[Surt]

If by handled well you mean 'hang up on you' then I agree, cell phones do this well already.

Re:Hmmm...

[Surt]

bah, should have previewed, html ate my:

-- wanders off grumbling about stupid verizon service --

Re:Hmmm...

[Jerry Coffin]

That's because the phone companies manually program in "adjacencies" - which cells are near to what. It's not the handset that says "I can see Cell 1241, I'm going to move" - it's the phone company's network that tells the phone to move.

That's not really true -- while the base station is programmed with an adjacency list, it basically just acts as a crib for the handset. In particular, while a base station can detect when the signal from a handset is getting weak, it has no way to guess at the direction to the handset. The adjacency list contains some base stations closer to the handset, while others are in the opposite direction from the handset, and the base station has no clue of which is which.

So what happens during a handoff is simply that the base station gives the handset a list of other base stations it should look for, and the handset looks for which of those gives it the best signal. This restricts the search, so the handset can find other base stations quickly and easily using a minimum of power. It is true that although the handset initiates the handoff, the base stations talk directly to each other to finalize it (i.e. they coordinate between themselves to decide on the exact packet when one base station quits sending the data out over the network, and the second base station starts to do so) -- though the details of handoff vary from one type of network to another as well.

--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

Re:Hmmm...

[slashdotmsiriv]

It's so funny how the moderator for our comments assigned score 1, while they are among the few ones that set the facts straight about mesh networks. Moderators if you don't know about something, simply refrain from assigning score to it. Don't be fooled by techno bubble comments like how would the service of a mesh network compare to the service of cellular networks.
Ofcourse this can happen if the mod is a guy with absolutely no knowledge of comp. science and systems and just a guy who knows very well how to configure his 802.11 and idiotic technical stuff like that. We are talking about two totally different systems designed for different purposes and whether or not mesh networking can be used to provide the communication service cell nets currently provide is a completely out of scope question.

Mesh

[certel]

Sounds interesting. People are really jumping on board with all of this. I'm interested in seeing some new ideas for the future in what could be accomplished.

AP Roaming Question

[cletus.the.wonder.sl]

We have multiple large warehouses with truck mounted and handheld Symbol wireless devices and each warehouse has 10 or more access points. One issue we have at times is with roaming. The current Symbol software has a bug and will not let go of an access point as readily as it should causing obvious connection issues. Does anyone know if this will address the issue as a possible work around? I will be interested in seeing if Cisco's 1200 series can also be used in conjunction with this new access point to create a mesh since we have rolled out a large number of them very recently to replace the nasty old 350s.

Re:AP Roaming Question

[RingDev]

The key note speaker at the conference I attended said he could walk from VP row in the Cisco campus, get on the tram and ride to the other side of the campus with out ever losing his connection to the network on his handheld device. He also showed some live time tracking systems (Cisco door keys apparently have some sort of WiFi device built in) where he could pull up a map of his office building, see the wireless signal overlay and all of the wireless devices, including an employee who was working late(or had left his key behind).

-Rick

Re:AP Roaming Question

[RicoX9]

I don't know if you can turn down the power on those devices, but it sure helped us here. We have 138 Cisco 1200 AP's in this building. First step was to turn all of them WAY down. 20mw. Then tweak a few up to fill in. After that, I noticed some of the same kind of behavior you speak of on the device side. We run either Cisco or Intel cards primarily.

I found that turning the signal down to 20-30mw reduces the number of AP's that try to negotiate with you, and AP-to-AP handoff went a lot smoother. YMMV.

Re:AP Roaming Question

[saridder]

It also helps if the end devices are CCX (Cisco Compatable eXtention) built into their firmware. Most firmware vendors have it built in such as Intel, IBM, etc.. In normal operation a device is sticky, meaning once it has an AP, it tries to stay on it, even if there's a newer AP with better signal nearby. CCX has the smarts to constantly look for a better AP. I'm guessing that the Symbol devices don't have CCX built in.

Re:AP Roaming Question

[MeanJeans]

Turning SSID broadcast on will vastly improve roaming performance regardless of client hardware/software.

There are many who still feel that disabling SSID broadcast is an effective security measure (it isn't) so their wifi performance suffers.

Google for wp_ssid_hiding.pdf...

Re:Stupidity

[tradiuz]

Well, I would have to disagree with you on that. Look around you, note how many stupid people you can find in a 100yd radius! (Heck, look at half the posters on /. including me).

but people arn't that stupid...;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Impossible. Establish ANY bar of stupidity, and people will rise (or fall) to the challenge of going over (or under) it.

Apples vs. oranges

[Wesley Felter]

Of course a blazing 33Kbps connection is cheaper than a ~1Mbps mesh. You ought to compare mesh against 3G or Starbucks-style 802.11, where every access point has dedicated backhaul; I suspect that mesh is much cheaper in that case.

Re:Stupidity

[VJ42]

Indeed, you have totally faied to understand the sarcasm in my post (you deside wheather that makes you stupid or not). Of course I know people, myself included, are stupid; that was the point I was making.

Breaking the monopolies for internet access

[mollog]

This is really cool. Now it becomes almost trivally easy for people to resell internet access and break the backs of the monopolies of cable and DSL internet access providers. And if this were combined with satelite downlink, everybody could have some seriously fast access for a minimal cost. Bring it on!

Re:Breaking the monopolies for internet access

[Metrathon]

Unless you are doing truly local access you will need to tap into the landlines of a provider at some point (the sooner the better probably). They will still want to be paid for this usage...

Also you will need some model for paying for your traffic or else there will be zero incentive to provide these connections to the backbone.

Re:Breaking the monopolies for internet access

[ChrisGilliard]

Also, if you rtfa, this is not what you might expect. This system allows up to 32 wireless repeaters to connect to a wired connection point. Not so impressive actually given that wireless repeaters already exist (some made out of lamp shades). It's not something that you can have on your laptop and communicate with your neighbor's laptop and thus share internet connections. As you've pointed out, that would be cool.

Re:Breaking the monopolies for internet access

[monkeyfishgoat]

Trivially easy may be overstating things by quite a margin - if you're going to resell internet access using unlicensed frequency bands you're going to have real trouble giving any sort of guaranteed bandwidth or quality of service. There's just no (practical) way to prevent or limit interference in these bands so you can't guarantee someone won't trample all over your customers. It'll be hard for meshes to compete commercially with DSL/Cable - they're better suited to regions without DSL/Cable.

Re:Breaking the monopolies for internet access

[mitherial]

"Now it becomes almost trivally easy for people to resell internet access and break the backs of the monopolies of cable and DSL internet access providers. And if this were combined with satelite downlink, everybody could have some seriously fast access for a minimal cost."

That's right, because broadband infrastructure is actualy free, and the low cost of broad-band usage now isn't at all due to the high number of subscribers... /Idiot

Re:Breaking the monopolies for internet access

[mollog]

...if you're going to resell internet access using unlicensed frequency bands you're going to have real trouble giving any sort of guaranteed bandwidth or quality of service. There's just no (practical) way to prevent or limit interference in these bands so you can't guarantee someone won't trample all over your customers. It'll be hard for meshes to compete commercially with DSL/Cable - they're better suited to regions without DSL/Cable.

The issue of bandwidth and QOS already exists with the current WiFi equipment. We manage to make it work. Also, if Cisco, a company that got big by doing smart things, is getting into this business, don't you think they'll have considered the issue?

DSL/Cable need to make a big investment in wiring to make their technologies work. They have to run wires to every customer's premise. That's the basis of their monopoly; they'll take a franchise as long as it's a monopoly.

The per-customer barrier to entry in a wireless solution is far lower, and the customer can be charged for most of the up-front cost - they buy their WiFi box.

The local access WiFi provider can contract with any number of providers of trunk communications access, much like how cell phone access works. Truth is, you'll probably see cell phone providers be the first ones into this market. They know how to connect to the communications network. With this WiFi mesh network, they'll be able to provide cell phone, local internet access , and local phone service (such as Vonage). And the local phone service will be a partial overlap with cell phone service.

Time to sell cable and bell telephone short.

no Harry Harlow references yet?

[poot_rootbeer]

it seems to me that WiFi plus some nice software should make a mesh. Doesn't seem like a hardware thing to me.

Doesn't have to be a hardware thing, but when you're Cisco, everything should be solved with hardware.

Re:no Harry Harlow references yet?

[Guspaz]

Which would explain why Linksys (Cisco) WRT54G wireless routers (Can be found for under $50 US) can form a mesh with custom firmware, but why Linksys' own default firmware doesn't support it.

Their "new" mesh stuff seems to go beyond a simple mesh, but considering how their own existing wireless devices can pretty much already do what they're announcing, I'm not seeing anything truly special here.

And I would imagine that most of the "new" stuff could be added to existing mesh-supporting firmware.

Support Open Source Wireless Meshes!

[mailseth]

Help the CUWiN Project, it's distributed under the BSD license.

Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network

(Disclaimer: I'm a contributer to said project)

Re:Support Open Source Wireless Meshes!

[Anonymous Coward]

CUWin rocks! MeshAP from Locust is pretty good too ... I hope to see some of these open solutions succeed.

Re:Support Open Source Wireless Meshes!

[cibus]

Or you culd check out http://freifunk.net/

Is this really mesh?

[ChrisGilliard]

This rooftop access point uses 802.11a to link up to 32 Aironet 1500 lightweight mesh access points

Ok, first of all you have to connect to this central system that links to 32 remote systems. I'm not positive, but it doesn't even look like the remote systems (called Aironet 1500's) can communicate with each other. I thought the whole concept of mesh networks is having large number of users able to connect to one another. This seems more like an extension cord to your central connection point that can link to up to 32 repeaters. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Nothing like traditional cellular networks

[slashdotmsiriv]

Mesh networking is nothing like cellular networks. In mesh networks each node participates in the routing process, relaying packets intended for other receivers. Of course this is not the case with traditional cellular networks where routing takes place only in the based stations and the core network connecting the base stations. Furthermore, mesh (also called ad-hoc) networks are self-configurable and self-healing. You throw the nodes over an area and they themselves discover who their neighbors are, discover routes to other nodes in the network using distributed on demand or proactive routing protocols, and if a link fails they can automatically reconfigure their routing tables. Since nodes relay packets destined to other nodes, the range of the covered area can increase with the number of appropriately located devices, unlike cellular networks where the range is solely determined by the base station (BS) and phones' antenna transmission range. There is virtually no single point of failure as is the BS for traditional cell networks. Issues like hand-over are usually handled by the mesh network gateways. The defining steps on the subject were done by researchers at UC berkeley and xbow http://www.xbow.com/Products/Wireless_Sensor_Netwo rks.htm. Another pioneering company in the field of mesh networking is Embernet www.embernet.com, these guys developed commercial h/w and s/w for this purpose more than 3 years ago.

Re:Nothing like traditional cellular networks

[slashdotmsiriv]

forgive me, its at www.ember.com not www.embernet.com.

Re:Nothing like traditional cellular networks

[Jerry Coffin]

Mesh networking is nothing like cellular networks.

Oh, I realize from a technical viewpoint they're entirely different -- but I also realize that from the viewpoint of using them, the primary differences are speed and cost; minor (!) details like who assigns addresses or how the data is routed after it gets to the ground station clearly make a big difference in how you design the network, but are (hopefully) transparent in how you use them.

Realistically, it's true that somewhere between those, you get the job of deploying the network, and here it still makes a big difference -- particularly, in most cases, Joe Blow won't be able to install a network himself if he has to program in the handoff partners manually.

Nonetheless, an awful lot of people get a professional to do at least major parts of network installation, and for somebody who has a clue of what they're doing, this wouldn't make a big difference in most circumstances -- you program them in once, and only mess with things when you have to replace something. Of course, being from Cisco these boxes will undoubtedly require at least a dozen commands to do anything, (or entries at a GUI designed specifically to make a command line seem as straightforward as possible) but that's just Cisco, and really has nothing to do with mesh networking...

--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

Ci$co

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet Zombie Jesus, that is expensive!

I've spent less on a dozen nodes in a community WiFi project, plus all ancillary hardware and spares, than Cisco wants for a 2-node kit.

Traditions

[kickabear]

...traditional Wi-Fi network...

It's a testament to our relentless drive for forward progress that someone can write "traditional Wi-Fi network" and no one notices. I look forward to the time someone writes "traditional interface model."

traditional Wi-Fi network

[Eightyford]

"traditional Wi-Fi network"

It's words like these that show us just how fast technology is being developed.

compat with 802.11s ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since aquiring Airespace Cisco has been working hard to bring their own mesh technology to fruition.

Will the hardware be upgradeable to the future IEEE 802.11s standard for mesh networks?

If your really need this then they should buy it, otherwise it may be a better idea to wait.

sanswire

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like these guys might have the right idea for providing wifi...

http://www.sanswire.com/home.htm

I saw a segment on the science channel about them, and the thing is supposed to cover an area the size of Texas.

Mesh, Smesh...

[SirHailstone]

Nokia did the same thing a few years ago when they acquired RoofTop Communications. They rolled out the mesh technology to ISPs. After about 10-15 nodes and 2-3 hops away from the master node (or "airhead") the performance was about that of single channel ISDN. It was sold as 1 MBit to each subscriber node. The meshing worked nice. But the speed was pathetic. Then Nokia dumped the entire line without warning and left ISPs high and dry. Many of which I believe went to Motorola's Canopy platform.

Re:Mesh, Smesh...

[S7urm]

though I must agree that mesh networks underperform in speed, once they finally institute the ideal of swarming technology, not only will the speed be picked up but you'll also see a drastic increase in potential lost/corrupt packets. the real profit from mesh networking (at least as I see it) is the ability to cut cycles in processes in a networked environment. Once we find that technology like torrents is an easy, fast, and very decentralized way to store and transfer data, mesh networking and hardware techs of that vein will become a very prominent and profitable venture for any large node count business setting

Current mesh problems..

[SMS_Design]

Having messed with current mesh systems (WDS), I'm not very satisfied. The problem that you find is that the radio can only recieve or send at any given moment. Wi-Fi is half-duplex. The effect of this is that every hop you have, you are cutting your available bandwidth by 1/2. Also, reliability goes down the toilet and you add the problem of dumb repeaters circulating packets like highschoolers passing a joint around behind the gym.

If you were to have a mesh network using up TWO wireless channels, each AP having two radios, you could break this bottleneck and have a fake-full-duplex network, meaning you'd basically just tack on a few ms of latency for each hop. Problem solved, no ground-breaking research needed. The problem with it? They would never make a dual-radio WRT54G, so I'd have to pay a bloated price (Probably 4x the price of a single-radio AP) due to economies of scale and such.

One way I made a fake mesh (Which was really more of a star but without so much bandwith cut) was to have a backhaul channel of 14(illegal) and just have a central AP on that chan. On the remote router end, I'd have a client on chan 14, and then an actual AP for the public connected to it by CAT5. Hey, it's rigged.. but it works.

Why ?

[GavrocheLeGnou]

Is it another Cisco stuff to sell hardware instead of Open source software ?

FireTide Mesh

[Anonymous Coward]

I am currently working with a mesh product made by a small company called FireTide (www.firetide.com). After a little digging around, it looks like their mesh units run a very trimmed-down uClinux, and quite frankly they work marvelously. They operate at either 2.4 or 5GHz, and have a slick java management tool that allows the mesh to be managed from any platform running java. They also include some cool features like proximity-based load-balancing for multiple internet connections. I don't have any stake in the company, but am very impressed with this mesh solution.

Nortel did this two years ago....

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been used by NASA providing WLAN coverage for press to file stories during the recent shuttle launch, Marshalltown, Iowa deployed it, University of Arkansas deployed it, an entire city in Taiwan is deploying it

Unlike Cisco it is not bolted on through buying a company, rather developed from the ground up and it does not work in a star config, rather a true mesh as the name implies...

I'm sick of seeing Cisco get coverage here when they deliver late, with inferior products

http://products.nortel.com/go/product_content.jsp? parId=0&segId=0&catId=-9227&prod_id=47160&locale=e n-US