Urban OSPF Mesh

[rmiller007]

Is anyone running a StarOS OSPF mesh-like network in an urban area? The area I'm looking at has standard two story houses on narrow lots. They have yards (with trees) in front and back, but are separated side to side by little more than their driveways. Call it Midwestern urban. Anyway, due to the trees and the zoning that hinders tower height, this mesh-like structure is what I've been looking at building.

I'd be curious to hear from anyone running similar configuration.
Also, I'd be curious to hear from anyone that attempted a similar setup but didn't find it feasible.

In particular:
What Frequency and Radio setup? 802.11A/B/G or specialized?
What gain on the router antennas?
What, if any, special CPE are you using?
What kind of antenna are you using on the customer side?
What kind of radius of coverage are you getting around each router?
Are you running it as kind of an oversized Hotspot?

[redhat66]

With all the talk of mesh in the new posts I would kind of like the same questions answered. I have never worked with OSPF and am greatly intrested in its performance in a mesh topo.

[titan_wireless]

With all the talk of mesh in the new posts I would kind of like the same questions answered. I have never worked with OSPF and am greatly intrested in its performance in a mesh topo.


Me too

[redhat66]

I have also seen Lonnie post that a mesh unit would require 2 radios and antenni. I am having a hard time wraping my head around how that unit would be configured. One as a client and one as an AP??? :-(

[titan_wireless]

I have also seen Lonnie post that a mesh unit would require 2 radios and antenni. I am having a hard time wraping my head around how that unit would be configured. One as a client and one as an AP??? :-(


I would think one for your backhaul (Intra Mesh Communications) and one for clients. Right?

[Skaught]

Personally I never feed another AP off of a pmp AP. Performance is bad at the best of times.

I would use 3 Interfaces, one for incoming ptp, one for outgoing ptp and one for pmp AP. Perhaps even a 3rd ptp. Sounds like the WARs might do this eventually.

[ninedd]

I would use 3 Interfaces, one for incoming ptp, one for outgoing ptp and one for pmp AP.Yes, that's the way to do it, but this doesn't really qualify as 'mesh', does it? Having Multiple Radios and Antennas for each leg of the link is pretty much the standard way of doing it.

When people are talking about an Urban Mesh, I think most are thinking something like the Nokia Rooftop was supposed to be. Just plop a radio on a roof and another on the next and another on the next and go. As long as 1 radio has LOS to your POP, and as long as there is some available path throught the mess (I mean mesh) then all's well.

In practicality, I don't think anyone's really been able to get this idea to scale, plus you'll be by definition using OMNI's at all subs, which is going to have it's own limitations.

If you are any distance from your POP, the client will need a panel, and therefor the liklyhood of having people they could mesh to inside that beam is small anyway. That's why Lonnie recommends doing an extra Radio / Antenna - spend the extra $100 and then you've got a panel to backhaul, and an Omni as an AP. It's no longer a 'mesh', but rather a MicroPOP, and it works.

Now, all that being said, Lonnie's talking about Mesh in VX/V3, but really he's talking about it on the backbone level. We could link our towers to each other, using multiple radios and multiple antennas. Every tower that has LOS to some other could be redundently linked. If tower A is linked to B, and B is linked to C, and C to D right now, then any work that needs to be done to tower C takes all C and D clients off the air. With BackBoneMesh (assuming of course that you could reach D back to A or B), work on tower C would only take C off the air, and D would self heal back to A or B or whatever other path it could reach. I'm not to hot about a client/enduser mesh, but a BackBoneMesh is very cool. :)

[Skaught]

Ya, nokia rooftop sucks

I did not realize you are in Sask Inet2000. I had a call from someone looking for serivce in your area just a few weeks ago.

I just found your website with map. Allthough it is a bit harsh on the eyes, for a second I thought the domain had been squatted. :)

[redhat66]

I am compleatly on board with all that is said, but in my application I am not providing a ISP service and would like to offer each site as a "Backbone" style connection. Some comments from Lonnie are on this post.

http://forums.star-os.com/showthread.php?p=25449#post25449

Each of my sites has no clients other than the equipment wired directly to the radios. Each of the connections serves only as a means of accessing my equipment. I would not use the Nokia even if it was still in production, but that is how I would like to run my radios.