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Cisco To Unveil Wireless Mesh Hardware

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the no-strings-to-hold-me-down dept.

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."

4 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Mesh... by tradiuz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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"?

  2. Cost by Rinnt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!

  3. Hmmm... by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

    --
    The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
  4. Re:Nothing like traditional cellular networks by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

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