Mesh Routing...

[jeromie-reeves]

I am looking at a number of wireless solutions, of them the Nokia RoofTop looks the best. I live in a rural area, i will not be able to provide access to a number of areas due to the terain. Installing extra AP's is not fesable. It will cost $1500-$2000 per location with only 5-10 people at those locations. That puts the return in that location in the 2-4 year range.(and at the whim of the consumer market, say i have 10 customers for 4 months then lose 8 of the customers, not a good thing) Any word if Aironet will ever support mesh routing? As far as i know Agere's OriNOCO line wont, nor will Breeze's line. Any ideas?

Jeromie Reeves

High Desert Net Inc

[jaunger]

Jeromie,

I have not heard of any Aironet gear that supports mesh networks. Please keep in mind

that although a mesh network will help somewhat to overcome situations where

line-of-sight (LOS) may be partially obstructed, it does not have the ability to overcome attenuation from paths where the terrain completely obstructs LOS. It may help where the distance between nodes is VERY SHORT and partially obstructed but if your environment contains paths that are really obstructed and several miles long, mesh is not going to work. I don't want to rain on your

parade but it's possible that wireless just won't work in your setting with the terrain obstructions.

jack

[jeromie-reeves]

The path's are not that bad, its mainly a number of trees in yards and ect like that. The worst one is Canyon City, we are two cities in one that are both set in a junction of a vally and a canyon. CC is up the canyon, it would work if it did not bend the way it does. Im mainly looking at this as another option. I still plan to go with the "normal" setup.

Deciding on just what hardware to use, is a bit tricky. Currently people are opting for OriNOCO and Breeze's solutions with WMUX as a replacement four our T1. I would just like a option to get those last few people.