Tibet's Mesh

siriuskase writes "Volunteers are building a low-cost wireless mesh network to provide cheap, reliable data and telephony to community. I would love to see a free wireless mesh that's not dependent on any government or corporation take over the world."

Comments

It's not exactly 'open' or 'free'

[TubeSteak]

Dharamsala's growing mesh is not open to laptop-toting visitors. The bandwidth its operators have to share is limited, costly and much of it comes from BSNL, the government-controlled telecom provider. So for now, access is limited mostly to schools, government offices and nonprofits, which pay a nominal fee and host equipment to further the network's reach.

Admins reluctantly installed a content filter at one site because so many adults were visiting porn sites

Contrast with: "I would love to see a free wireless mesh that's not dependent on any government or corporation take over the world."

Wouldn't we all?

Ultimately, those mesh networks are going to be tied into Gov't or corporate owned backbones. Mesh networks are not going to be the solution for developing countries and I don't understand how anyone expects an independant mesh network to magically appear.

Like anything else, it will require (expensive) investments in infrastructure. Or am I missing something?

Re:It's not exactly 'open' or 'free'

[also-rr]

Like anything else, it will require (expensive) investments in infrastructure. Or am I missing something?

Yes, I did used to do this for a living (and would do it again if someone wants to pay me for it).

In theory there is nothing to stop a world spanning global mesh, except of course for:

1. limitations of the speed of light
2. the size of the routing table
3. lack of trust in intermediate nodes
4. node induced latency
5. oceans

Let's say that your networking technology has a max range of 100m, and the town is a very densly inhabited 10km square, which is pretty much a best case. Getting accross town requires 100 hops and if each of them adds 10ms latency (a pretty low estimate) thats 1000ms. How do you fancy playing quake with 1000ms of lag?

The *best* use for mesh networks is as a complimentary network. Because bandwidth rises in a geometric relationship with the number of nodes (x^n is the limit where x is link bandwidth, but it won't happen due to technology limitations and a bunch of other things) as a very high capacity bulk carrier it probably cant be beaten. Combine it with a smart information distribution system and information redundancy* and you could do some very impressive things.

That way you free up you *real* bandwidth, the latency middle ground of mesh-to-wireless-direct-backhaul, for web browsing as all of the porn and youtube junk is transiting the bulk delivery system. Add on one-hop-to-wired-PoP for latency critical apps such as VoIP and you gain a seamless, layered, high capacity and high performance network.

*I wrote a paper looking at using freenet plus an overlying signing mechanism and co-ordinated seeding as a reliable distribution system in 2003, I'll have to dig it ou and publish it some day.

Re:Free Wifi? How about free Tibet?

[hclyff]

Oh no, here we go again.

"Instead of technology, we should [provide food for the starving children / free the oppressed people / solve everyones problems]."

I know this will generate many doh's, but you are missing the point: with access to the internet comes actual freedom.

More info on this...

[dougman]

The article seems to be /.'d, so here's some additional information on this.

The submitter of this article said, "I would love to see a free wireless mesh that's not dependent on any government or corporation take over the world."

I'd love to see everyone in their dream house with a luxury car getting 250 MPG that's not dependent on any government or corporation.

I think both those statements have the same likelyhood of coming true.

I'd guess that 98% of Americans consider sewer, water, and electrical essential no matter where they live. I would guess that internet access still falls below those three. Fat-pipe internet access may eventually be a true utility that is natuarlly expected to exist anywhere, but it isn't there yet. Even when it does, why would anyone think it wouldn't depend on any government or corporation? All major utilities require BOTH government and corporations. If anything, it will move further away from small local ISP's (like internet and electricity started with). Huge infrastructure with high reliability and reasonable cost demands this type of change.

Having recently come out of a community planning meeting, our small town of 600+ has determined that wireless internet access for all could be a big another way to try and lure younger folks (like myself) that are choosing between other small towns in the area. I'm in the very first stages of feasabiltiy - looking at all the options. The problems of course come down to who pays for it. In the case of our aging community, a lot of folks don't see the need or even want access. That means they don't want any of their tax dollars going to fund it (never mind that my tax dollars fund their senior center and senior bus). On top of that, the local telco isn't very excited to see their individual DSL subscriptions go away either. Then there is the issue of hardware and support. With a town of this size, it is nearly impossible to have 24x7 support. These are just a few of the things that go into the hopper when you're looking at building the infrastructure of small towns which at the end of the day really are what make up the mesh between the 2-5 metro locations in each state. Doing this without local government or a corporate sponsor will be difficult. If this article has any detail (when it's available again!), I hope I can learn some slick new tricks.

India will never be Tibet!

[bushwhacker2000]

I second the above poster, Dharamsala, INDIA will never be Tibet. Yes, the article is about bringing WiFi to Tibetans (in exile) but it certainly IS NOT about bringing WiFi to Tibet.

Nevertheless, thanks for posting it, I enjoyed the article. For those who have never been there, if you ever visit India consider going WAY out of your way to visit Dharamsala. Himichal Pradesh is probably one of the poorest states in India (after Bihar), but it is rather pretty up in the mountains. It certainly does not have the climate of Tibet either, don't worry about freezing to death in the winter, etc. To sum it up, if you ever read Tintin in Tibet as a kid (and liked it) Dharamsala is worth a visit. That said, Dharamsala is about the only thing worth seeing in HP (not kidding). If you go, bring some old computer gear to donate.

If you go, stay at the guest house down the hill from the Dalai Lama's monastery, it is run by a cool Geshe (Geshe is like the equivalent of a Ph.D. in Tibetan Buddhism) who speaks English well and who is also quite kind.