Craig Mathias, of Computerworld believes the next generation of Municipal wireless will use mobile mesh:
I’m a big fan of metro-scale Wi-Fi networks, which are now being deployed around the world.
However, while these projects are exciting, metro-scale Wi-Fi networks can’t provide the same coverage as wide-area wireless technologies such as cellular 3G and mobile WiMax.
One reason for that is that mesh infrastructure such as access points or nodes used for metro-scale Wi-Fi must be located in fixed locations. Sure, we can add more nodes and more radios per node, but given the technology, and because the nodes need power, they can’t move around.
One concept we’ve been exploring is mesh nodes that are deployed on vehicles that are commonly on the move, such as buses, taxis, police cars and fire trucks. These moving nodes would form the core infrastructure of the mesh.
Client nodes would associate with these mesh points and re-associate with others as a given node roams out of range. Backhaul can be provided via relaying through the mesh, using other wireless technologies like 3G and WiMax and/or a few fixed points that provide a bridge to wired capacity.
One of these, in Long Beach, used PacketHop’s products for a simulated homeland security exercise at Long Beach Airport. This approach was particularly valuable in this case because it provided a single, unified, multimedia network that could be set up quickly and that could dynamically and quickly adapt to any situation.
This same technique could be applied to commercial and enterprise applications as well. Imagine, for example, every car being a dynamic mesh node, and the amount of capacity that this technology would create on and near almost every road. Imagine being able to cover a corporate campus, providing access to vehicles and buildings alike.
Sounds delightful, Craig. But isn’t that what cellular and mobile WiMAX are for?
Motorola’s Mesh Networking Solutions are based on a QDMA radio. Motorola’s Mesh Scalable Routing protocol acts as a relay point — somewhat similar to MIT’s RoofNet or San Francisco’s Meraki network.
One set of Wi-Fi and MEA radios operate in the unlicensed 2.4GHz band. The other operates in the 4.9GHz public safety band. They have a showcase of applications.
