Meshnet in Auckland, New Zealand

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Meshnet in Auckland, New Zealand

indileosat

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#195745 2-May-2016 13:30

I wonder if we ever had a localmesh in Auckland, or anywhere in New Zealand?

I expressed my interest on reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/comments/4flmxm/help_me_setup_meshnet_in_auckland_new_zealand/

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Hammered
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#1545375 2-May-2016 13:33

Welcome to Geekzone. A quick site search finds the following thread:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=132&topicid=161647

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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indileosat

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#1545381 2-May-2016 13:50

Stu: Welcome to Geekzone. A quick site search finds the following thread:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=132&topicid=161647

Thanks! :)

I'm not really after Radio Mesh Networks. To run radio mesh networks one must have good hardware, knowledge to make radio mesh network work.

I'm more after making a local mesh network using our existing wifi routers. It's not long range but it's short range. The range is as long as your home wifi routers have.

That means those wifi routers turn into mesh nodes and connect to it's nearby neighbor nodes which have the same meshnet connectivity functionality.

There are already such localmesh network groups.

https://freifunk.net/en/

https://www.reddit.com/user/Famicoman/m/meshlocals

All it needs like minded persons to get started a local mesh.

deadlyllama

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#1545411 2-May-2016 15:15

We tried to start a wifi network in Wellington back in the day (2005 or so), finding anyone interested who didn't have a hill between us and them was essentially impossible.

If you want to build something like this, expect to have to climb on your roof. Or move somewhere with sufficiently geeky neighbours.

darylblake

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#1545433 2-May-2016 16:25

I think Dunedin had one at one stage. And there was talk of one in K-Road/Ponsonby a couple of years back, I don't know if it ever amounted to anything. But AFAIK there is not one there now.

You could build one, but if you can't get people to pay to use it and find property owners who are willing to let you have network access points around the place then its a bit of a waste of time/effort/resources which I suspect is why it doesn't exist = too hard basket.

Also a lot of consumer level gear is not going to cut it otherwise it will just be rubbish, this makes it expensive.

indileosat

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#1545436 2-May-2016 16:26

deadlyllama:

We tried to start a wifi network in Wellington back in the day (2005 or so), finding anyone interested who didn't have a hill between us and them was essentially impossible.

If you want to build something like this, expect to have to climb on your roof. Or move somewhere with sufficiently geeky neighbours.

Yes, that's what I expect too in sense of line of sight in between nodes and the likelihood of having geeky neighbors around. :)

I'm also coding a software which will give a chance to meshnet nodes to incentivise. Hope that will help.

But, still it will be hard to get some people around and get started a local mesh.

Any tips where to start to get started ? I'm sure I must not be alone thinking such mesh network thing around in Auckland, just trying to find other like minded people around.

Meetups is one thing that comes to mind. Anything else I can do?

indileosat

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#1545443 2-May-2016 16:39

darylblake:

I think Dunedin had one at one stage. And there was talk of one in K-Road/Ponsonby a couple of years back, I don't know if it ever amounted to anything. But AFAIK there is not one there now.

You could build one, but if you can't get people to pay to use it and find property owners who are willing to let you have network access points around the place then its a bit of a waste of time/effort/resources which I suspect is why it doesn't exist = too hard basket.

Also a lot of consumer level gear is not going to cut it otherwise it will just be rubbish, this makes it expensive.

hmm... so what options do you see if such local meshnet needs to happen?

Cheers

Dyson

Shop now for Dyson appliances (affiliate link).

afe66

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#1545533 2-May-2016 19:02

With 4g mobile broadband, is there a need anymore ?

richms

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#1545534 2-May-2016 19:04

I think that people doing it are doing it as a because they can thing, like ham radio in general. There is little point in it when you can just pick up a phone and call someone, but its the whole having the gear and seeing what it can do thing that attracts those people to it.

Richard rich.ms

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#1545542 2-May-2016 19:22

It's pretty much a concept that can't work any longer. 2.4GHz is munted beyond belief unless you're going to buy Ruckus kit with beamforming and 5GHz won't leave a house.

The whole concept of mesh networks is terrible anyway - that's why nobody has them.

indileosat

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#1545546 2-May-2016 19:28

Was expecting the exact words from people around here.

Mesh networks have no value in developed world. It's just dumb. right ?

Wrong!

deadlyllama

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#1545553 2-May-2016 19:40

What are your goals beyond "it's neat to do"? What's the sales pitch to get people to sign up? Cheap/free internet for urban poor? Share your connection with your nearby mates?

I have a mesh network at my house. Running on a pile of old Meraki Minis (2.4GHz, 802.11g) that run OpenWRT quite well. One is mounted on the garage.

Even in the relative radio quiet of suburban Whanganui, once you've gone through a mesh hop your throughput drops to the low single digit Mbps.

I have line of sight to a geeky neighbour -- and we have a wireless link! But it's not "mesh", it's point-to-point with Mikrotik gear.

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sbiddle

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#1545558 2-May-2016 19:47

indileosat:

Was expecting the exact words from people around here.

Mesh networks have no value in developed world. It's just dumb. right ?

Wrong!

Other than "hey look this is cool" an open mesh network does serve no purpose in a real world. It can only deliver exceptionally poor throughput by modern standards and has more security holes than swiss cheese. I'd never want my unencrypted internet traffic routing through multiple other people's home connections.

The single biggest obstance is quite simply that 2.4GHz is munted beyond belief in a typical urban environment. Nothing can fix that.

darylblake

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#1545583 2-May-2016 20:28

indileosat:

darylblake:

I think Dunedin had one at one stage. And there was talk of one in K-Road/Ponsonby a couple of years back, I don't know if it ever amounted to anything. But AFAIK there is not one there now.

You could build one, but if you can't get people to pay to use it and find property owners who are willing to let you have network access points around the place then its a bit of a waste of time/effort/resources which I suspect is why it doesn't exist = too hard basket.

Also a lot of consumer level gear is not going to cut it otherwise it will just be rubbish, this makes it expensive.

hmm... so what options do you see if such local meshnet needs to happen?

Cheers

Back in the day when 128k was considered "broadband" it was more feasable.

I think you would be quite surprised at how much it costs to run a network. Lets say you wanted to set it up in Ponsonby Road. Firstly walk down there with wifi analyser and you will see that there are probably about 10 ~20 wireless networks at any one point. The throughput would be bad, it wouldn't hand off seamlessly between access points and you would need some wired backbone connecting them all. You might get a couple of mbit max if you can get enough signal.

Secondly 4g data is so cheap no one will want to pay to join your mesh.

Thirdly what @sbiddle said. 5Ghz + expensive equipment probably Ruckus which starts at about $600-$700 per AP.

axxaa

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#1545584 2-May-2016 20:31

Checkout http://www.broadband-hamnet.co.nz/ There is a active mesh network in the Wellington region. They use 2.4 and 5 g

73's

ZL2BRG

richms

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#1545593 2-May-2016 20:59

axxaa:

Checkout http://www.broadband-hamnet.co.nz/ There is a active mesh network in the Wellington region. They use 2.4 and 5 g

73's

ZL2BRG

The problem is as soon as its done on a ham license, you cant do anything commercial with it, so that means it becomes a money sink and a hobby.

Richard rich.ms

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