For a good example of how such a mesh network can indeed function well, consider Ricochet, which once offered service in a few metro regions, including the Bay. The relay units were typically mounted on utility poles, by arrangement with the relevant agencies.
True, 128kbps wasn't anything that'd compare with 4G, but this was 1999. It wasn't great at handoffs either, but still, I was able to use it on BART regardless. Imagine, connected to the net - on the move!
Worth noting that the maximum bitrate of the base LoRa encoding is not going to replace your cellphone anytime soon, even for a fantasy re-hash of the text-based Internet that this article suggests.
I believe the maximum speed of LoRaWAN on 900Mhz spectrum is a blazing 27 kbps (that's bits), so the cited 80Kb/s in the linked article for Sidewalk-to-IP communication is several orders of magnitude higher and must contain a lot of (unsurprising) overhead.
LoRa is good for applications where it used, like meter monitoring, control systems (oilfield etc.), and RC airplane control (R9/Crossfire/Ghost). It could certainly be used for the proposed motion detection and lighting use cases. With modern codecs, you could maybe complete 1-2 voice calls at a time over it, maybe. But my guess is that Amazon's play here is "smart home without the WiFi configuration," not "replace your cell phone."
It's not going to replace your cell phone data plan.
The author is conflating max allowed bandwidth from the bridge to Sidewalk server with per-end-node bandwidth. The 80Kbps includes the bundle of all of the LoRaWAN messages it has received for all end-node-devices within range. This is a marketing point to show the Amazon device owner that this won't consume large amounts of their bandwidth. The Things Network suggests a maximum expectation of 250 BITS/s. This is not going to replace cell networks. https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/lorawan/limitations.ht...
The internet and the IP protocol is kinda incompatible with mesh networks.
A city-spanning mesh network which connected to the internet at peoples home broadband connections couldn't reasonably function. Someone who was downloading a file over the mesh wouldn't be able to have their data use any connection to the internet - they would have to keep using the same gateway from the mesh to the internet, because if they switched gateways their IP would change and existing connections would fail.
It's the same reason switching from WiFi to Mobile data and back causes a reconnect in video calls.
> between 500 meters and a mile in urban areas
Good way to confuse both imperialists and metricists
> we can expect that Amazon will do everything in its power to lock every non-Amazon-sanctioned device out of its network
I expect the opposite: for Amazon to sell this as a utility network service to all compatible devices (a la LoraWAN).
If they do, they are likely to quickly eclipse The Things Network and Helium.
“Soon, the mobile phones for which we are now paying $40 US per month or more may work for practically no cost. Won't it be interesting to watch our widely-hated wireless telecommunication companies struggle to stay in business?”
Competing using a shared chunk of 900Mhz? Not likely. 5G uses millimeter bands (20Ghz to 60Ghz) that provide up to 20Gbps of bandwidth. A public shared scheme using 900Mhz isn’t going to compete with that.
Spectrum is the pipe and whoever has the biggest pipes wins. It’s a bit like telling the public they can compete with an oil pipeline using a shared straw.
in the OpenWrt source tree, a large section of the repo is devoted to Freifunk ("Free Radio" in german)
It is a giant mesh network.
Long range isn't a necessity for mesh networks.
Regular wifi would be fine - the vast majority of the world's population lives within 100 yards of another person.
Shorter links actually increases spectrum utilization.
The issue is that wifi never managed to make a decent mesh networking standard. No router you buy today acts as an open mesh node for anyone to mesh with.
> This means in two to five years we may be able to surf the internet or talk on our [phones] while walking down the sidewalk in nearly any city
What a prospect! Can you even imagine?
We need a mesh networking standard which is trustless. Ie. anyone can join the mesh, but not easily disrupt it and be evil.
Today 802.11s is a great mesh standard, but it isn't trustless - all mesh nodes need to know the network password, and if you shared that password with the world, then someone could join and make the entire mesh stop working (and steal all your data).
I think the worst outcome of this yet one more avenue gobbled up by a large tech conglomerate. My understanding is that ISM bands are supposed to be free for personal use and are the last fronts for small scale connectivity innovation
What I’m looking forward to is low-cost, mid-bandwidth and ultra-high-latency store-and-forward LEO satellite constellations.
Something that you can use in the middle of anywhere and send/receive text news, messages and short voice recordings. Maybe a handful of photos per day if you want to point your antenna to the sky manually and follow the satellite for a few minutes for max bandwidth on an upload.
There’s a few projects out there, but still out of reach of the consumer because I guess... they can charge more to a corporate user.
Helium network has been growing fast. Just crossed 20,000 hotspots and will probably reach 100,000 this year. It uses a crypto mining incentive so the network expands without any central corporation needing to spend a dime on infrastructure. People are already building cool IoT projects with it from adafruit kits.
I am reminded of the old Ricochet network:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service)
http://daedalus.cs.berkeley.edu/talks/retreat.6.96/Metricom....
It was an idea ahead of its time.
Any form of Non-Cellular Internet is good as telecommunication industry is at best oligopolies or at worse monopolies in most countries; But unfortunately wireless Internet is still largely dependent upon them.
Apart from other reasons discussed here on why mesh Networks aren't the go-to choice yet, there's another problem I'm noticing in India; 4G(LTE) Internet is cheaper than any other form of Internet delivery here.
It's well-known that India has the cheapest 4G data plans, So in-spite of innovative startups trying their best to crack into city-wide mesh network they just couldn't compete with the pricing of cellular Internet besides 4G data is the means to Internet in most households here and they are not going to change to WiFi when they leave the house.
P.S. I've been tracking the need gap in 'Non cellular network mobile Internet' & I welcome related resources. Link in my profile.
Regulatory duty cycles/time on air (ToA) will prevent the legal use for highish bandwidth applications and are necessary to keep the frequency open for everyone.
If you're looking for an open lora-wan network, you might want to investigate helium (https://www.helium.com/)
its got some block-chain hypermegadrive bullshit, but at its heart it looks like a super cheap quite widespread lora network
There's no reason to build a LoRa mesh network if all the devices are connected on WiFi. Instead, it sounds like Amazon is building out a network of LoRa access points where their customers pay for the hardware and operate the access points. It's hard to say what their plans are for the network, but if they wanted to make a tile competitor that could find your stuff in an entire city, this would make it possible.
LoRaWAN's use case isn't that of cellular data or wifi. It is what will be the backbone comm network of billions of edge ML devices by mid-decade.
It would really be great to see license-free 900 MHz radios come to smartphones. Text only store-and-forward would be more than fine for many use cases.
Not sure I see this as a replacement for my cellphone plan as the author suggests. I regularly stream video which I think needs more bandwidth.
I like the idea of mesh networks, but I think they have all the character of do-it-yourself personal data.
So, wait, now I get to bear the burden of understanding how my network traffic is being routed and figuring out when I have issues?
Not keen on that honestly. I might be technically capable, but that doesn't mean I'm interested or have the time to spend on it.
for a taste of citywide mesh: https://www.nycmesh.net/
impressive map: https://www.nycmesh.net/map
I'm not sure about latency...
I use a wireless phone headset from Plantronics that operates in the 900 MHz range. It works so much better than Bluetooth since the range is farther (especially indoors) and the band is less crowded with interference.
The last thing I want to see is a bunch of new random consumer junk cluttering it up.
Thats true, but it won't be some sort of open platform, it will be a utility for amazon that will come with some sort of monetization scheme. I say this as someone that has deployed 10s of thousands of 900 Mhz radios in devices over the last few years. Conceptually though, some sort of interop standard that would offer end to end encryption and access control could be quite cool. On the other hand, sending the garage door signal over an unknown network path and trusting that there is no chance for manipulation is also a tough sell compared to the relatively short wireless->wired topology that dominates most consumer IoT. I'm sure there are use cases where it could work great though.
Around makerspaces, mesh networking plans rank slightly above perpetual motion machines. It's not impossible but there are substantial challenges. Ask any ham involved in packet radio for the past 40 years.
Does this actually solve the network hole problem though? Just because Amazon devices have this capability doesn't mean folks in rural areas have Amazon devices. Perhaps thats not the point of this article.
Already do in San Rafael, CA.
http://f3.to/cellsol/ here's firmware and schematics, add to it! :)
"One must also assume that Amazon will do its best to encrypt its network traffic and make its devices as hard to hack as possible."
Somebody feel free to disuade my fears, but all I'm able to think about this weekend is the Microsoft Exchange hack that just ravaged "30,000" organizations we're told. And here Amazon is building a publically usable network based on our Ring doorbells and "Hey Alexa devices". What could possibly go wrong?
Quote 1: " Lately, however, the number of goTennas in operation seems to have declined. Aside from the cost ($189 for two units) ..."
Quote 2: "...using the LoRa protocol for extending ..."
Based on these 2 points I have a question / proposal. How about RaspberryPi, as mesh network, using its WiFi capabilities and definitely faster than LoRa, which is snail in comparison? I mean RPi's are like ~$30 each, 3 times lower than goTennas and WiFi speed, yes?
When the apocalypse comes, these mesh networks might be the only way to communicate. We must have an alternate web that serves these networks.
Systems for email, notifications, etc.
Is there any benign scenario that explains why amazon should do that? They have essentially put listening devices into every home and now they bypass the home owner's network? Am I the only one that thinks this looks like it is about surveillance? What's the next step? Mandatory amazon smart meters? Smoke detectors?
Good old Hydrogen… Mozzerella?
I love the idea, but this has Tragedy of the Commons written all over it IMHO. It won't take very many bad actors before it's ruined for everyone.
That said, it's not stopping me from participating.
I get the sinking feeling this will replace wired Internet connections and then we'll all have to learn hard lessons about rain fade and packet collisions all over again. Hooray!
Mesh networks are cool, but they are a bit of overkill for solving problem of crappy $40/mo internet :)
(Writing this from my $8/mo 300 Mbps home connection. My 4G is $3/mo.)
A true open wireless mesh network is what the internet needs to become to overcome censorship and similar issues.
{off topic}
I don't normally like pink but I'm loving this black serif text on this shade of pink (#FFD4F5) background.
Fits perfectly with the technology I imagined for the post-apocalypse: Gopher, lynx and text messages!
I can see that this could be exploited by drug dealers creating local anonymous marketplaces or by any resistance movements to coordinate their actions against oppressive governments. Ergo it will be quickly outlawed...
And it will be slow with crappy QoS.
How does 802.11ah fit into this?
Why do I want this as a consumer?
Nit: HMz in title looks like a typo. If anyone wants to fix.
I'll let you all in on a little secret - for the last 15+ years there have been lots of cities with 902 Mhz FHSS networks covering every little inch of them. Any of the Utilities (predominantly electrical, but some water) - that have remote meter reading often use that part of the spectrum with enough duty cycle that they can trap nearby GFCI breakers. In the case of companies like the old Silver Spring Networks (itself, a descendent, technologically in many way from Richochet) - it's IPv6 for consumer distribution. 25 Million+ nodes when I left them in 2017. Since merged with Itron, so I'm sure it's doubled or tripled since then.