Commentary: Are low-cost Meraki networks conflicting with muni initiatives?
Meraki has been selling inexpensive Wi-Fi nodes (Meraki Mini Repeater) for about $50 USD each. This low price makes building mesh networks affordable for home owners and small businesses. In addition, ISPs can use the Meraki nodes to establish a low-cost wireless network and make use of Meraki tools to manage subscribers. Meraki has been selling inexpensive Wi-Fi nodes (Meraki Mini Repeater) for about $50 USD each. This low price makes building mesh networks affordable for home owners and small businesses. In addition, ISPs can use the Meraki nodes to establish a low-cost wireless network and make use of Meraki tools to manage subscribers.
As Esme mentioned in a recent post, people in parts of San Francisco are taking on the deployment of a free city-wide Wi-Fi network that appears to compete with efforts that the City and County of San Francisco is undertaking to create a city-wide Wi-Fi network. The current Meraki network is relatively small, but it has potential to grow throughout larger parts of the city.
I looked at the specifications of the Meraki Mini, and it’s a bit sketchy. The transmit power of the radio is only 60mw, which demands a much greater node density as compared to conventional mesh node vendors, such as Cisco, Motorola, and Tropos. At least the Meraki radio is comparable in transmit power as the radios in typical client devices, which keeps the uplink and downlink transmit power (and corresponding range) balanced. This in effect forces nodes to be close together, which could improve capacity.
Meraki, though, doesn’t show any useful performance metrics on their site. So I’m not certain how well the Meraki units will actually operate as a complete network. For instance, there’s no indication that the network will effectively support roaming, which is a huge issue for just about any mobile Wi-Fi application.
I’m somewhat concerned that the ad hoc installation of this Meraki network in San Francisco and other cities will result in limited capabilities and interfere with municipality initiatives for deploying city-wide Wi-Fi networks. The cities generally employ leaders in the industry to help them make the right business and technical decisions to ensure that resulting solutions satisfy all requirements for performance, capacity, security and ability to migrate to future technologies. It takes considerable planning and design, for example, to ensure that the network will support wireless IP telephony.
Municipalities could consider Meraki mesh nodes as part of the network infrastructure; however, the Meraki specifications, at least what’s posted on their website, indicate limited features to support demanding municipal wireless network requirements. For example, there is no support for multiple SSIDs and VLANs. This is often needed to keep various application traffic separate when requirements call for differing security and performance for applications.
Also, what about legal issues of sharing an Internet connection with your neighbors? I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that piping an entire neighborhood through your Internet connection will violate some or most ISP agreements.
- - - - - -
.gif)
While I agree with the issues Jim brings up about the limitations of Meraki’s APs, I believe that this movement brings up a point I’ve made repeatedly - general consumers represent the weakest pillar in the business case for muni networks (www.successful.com/abstract-1-07.html). Consumers are looking for great indoor coverage and they want it for as close to free as they can get. Cities such as Lompoc, CA and Taipei are discovering it’s really hard to make enough money selling to consumers.
The limitation of outdoor WiFi access points is indoor coverage. Conversely, it’s strength is outdoor coverage. If cities play to the strength of WiFi, they’ll use it to reap mega-benefits from facilitating mobile workforce application development and asset management. This is one of the two strongest pillars of the business case. The second pillar is selling muni wireless access to businesses who will reap similar benefits for their workforce and asset management.
Once you satisfy the needs of the two groups that are willing and able to afford muni wireless access, swing back for the general consumer with free or low cost access if you can afford it. Or link these Meraki networks with the muni networks for some combination of cheap/free indoor coverage and cheap/free outdoor roaming coverage.
Meraki will probably not be compatable with a muni network. I have been testing the devices and they do have many limitations. First they will only mesh with other Meraki nodes so they cannot be used as a network bridge. They have all of the authentication and billing software set up through a web redirected proxy. There is no access to the configs of particular nodes, its all done through a web interface. They are a fully NAT’d system which mean third party authentication hardware or software will not work, period. They require tight density so they do not scale over long distances without high direction antenna and LOS. Overall they are a very niche device that would be great for hotels and the like. However they will not be useful to muni’s due to the lack of control and centralized authentication requirements. They may give muni network a bunch of interference/noise or may compete directly with them because companies can deploy them indoors for good MDU coverage, making the weak indoor muni network irrelevant.
Jim is correct in his observations. I own a couple of these nodes.
I don’t have DSL or a T-1, so that limits my ability to share my network. I have broadband cable and would need the cable provider to bless the use of that bandwidth.
Presently the nodes are only able to be secured using WEP. WEP is not advised to use on a networks where you are worried about sensitive information.
But some would argue free Public wireless needs not be secure?
What I have done, to validate the use of inexpensive wireless Meraki mesh nodes is, connect one of the nodes to my SOHO wireless router switch port and discovered it does act as a separate WLAN for guest to connect to. The nodes get a dynamic address from the Meraki DHCP server that is reached through my broadband cable connection.
The other three nodes are plugged into an outlet in their house and act as hops.
The SOHO router is secure using WPA2 using a Preshared Key (PSK) . I personally connect to that SSID when surfing the web. The Meraki Mesh is open and free for those with inquiring minds.
These nodes may also serve a purpose in my neighborhood for such things, as a simple “Community Watch Groups”, i.e Citizen Watch. I haven’t pursued that yet…
If a few of my neighbors had a node using some “approved provider” , we could use them to watch the streets with strategically placed IP cameras throughout the neighborhood.
It would serve as a deterrent to crime and help us view general traffic and activities outdoors.
As Jim noted,
The show stopper in large scale is the single radio concept, in-ability to do VLANs and Multiple SSIDs, and something I hope will come available is Power over Ethernet (POE) it doesn’t exist on the indoor nodes.
You do have the ability to limit the amount of bandwidth available to end users. That is a plus. As well as block a user abusing the bandwidth.
If we had wireless VOIP phones, we could use it as a means of communication to our neighbors that had the nodes.
I trust these mesh nodes have a purpose and could be an inexpensive way to extend service to a community within reason.
The ROI is there. Now I just need some of the brilliance of people like Jim and Craig to convince the big time cable providers to buy into the concept.
They could bundle or give away the mesh service as an add on. At the same time advertise their services, and other business services through the mesh network ?
Actually, you can bridge via wireless with Meraki units using a feature that is currently in beta at this time. It allows you to create a “wireless uplink”. We have tested and are using these units in housing developments where residents are in close range.
I don’t know much about the nuts and bolts of these units as it seems to be kept behind lock and key, but the company has been very nice to talk to and willing to answer all of our questions.
We like the product for smaller deployments. Meraki recommends a separate Internet connection for every 10 nodes. This doesn’t seem practical when looking at deploying large scale networks.
Jim wrote, “I hope will come available is Power over Ethernet (POE) it doesn’t exist on the indoor nodes.”
While you’re right that not all the needed pieces don’t come with the basic $49 Meraki Mini, the device does support POE. You just need to buy an adapter like this:
http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/.f?search=18V+PoE
Jason wrote, “There is no access to the configs of particular nodes, its all done through a web interface.”
Jason, you might try sshing into a Meraki Mini node and then use vi to edit the /storage/config file.
Craig, are there any CPE devices that support multiple SSIDs and VLANs that you think are currently available at a reasonable price for use in, for example, large multi-dwelling units in conjunction with streetlight based municipal wifi nodes? Not even Cisco 1100s and 1200s support those capacities when they are running IOS and acting as repeaters last time I checked. Do you know if that is still the case?
Reggie,
The indoor Meraki Mini nodes support Power over Ethernet (PoE), just like the Outdoor nodes. You just need a PoE injector that’s rated at 4.5-18V. You can even build one yourself - http://www.dfwfreenet.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dfwfreenet:hardware#power_over_ethernet
While I see Jim’s Concern as essentially, valid, I think he is overlooking several items.
Firstly, The Meraki Minis are being given to some households in Mountain View CA as indoor repeaters by Google, “Google distributed the devices to businesses and apartment complexes in Mountain View that were having trouble connecting to the city’s free wireless system.” (from Adam Lashinsky’s http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/26/technology/pluggedin_lashinsky_google.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007032712) That is the primary reason, IMHO, for Google’s investment, repeat the signal indoors, cheaply. Put a high gain patch antenna on them if you wish and stick it in a window.
Secondly, the 60mw output and 2 dbi antennas allow them to interfere even less to the [effective] 4W output from the Tropos nodes
Thirdly, who are these networks for? If they are for local city management and emergency response then use the 4.9GHz band and avoid the interference, if it is for business access in offices then use a Meraki to repeat the signal into the office, if it is for outdoor business then use 5ghz, and finally if it is for Net Equality or public access, well that is where these excel.
Here in San Francisco, we are tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I believe that the http://sf.meraki.net project is working 100% better than the STILL nonexistent free San Francisco Municipal WLAN.
I keep seeing references to putting high-gain and/or directional antennas on Meraki units for certain purposes. I believe that in the U.S., FCC regulations allow these units to be used only with antennas of the type they were certified with, and no higher gain with that type of antenna. For the Meraki units, the information I found on the FCC site indicated omnidirectional, 5 dBi. A further disadvantage of changing the antenna is that you probably lose any benefit from the on-board antenna that may currently be in use for diversity, since the gains would differ widely.
For certain situations the Meraki network model is considerably less expensive than other solutions.
Meraki doesn’t appear to be pursuing an 802.11n version, which is unfortunate, since MIMO penetration into buildings is better than 802.11g. Recent tests show a very real advantage to 802.11 draft n units already in production, especially with certain chipsets/radios.
Is there an obligation by all players to wait years for a political process in which decisions don’t keep pace with available technology? Hundreds of existing transmitters using 802.11b/g can probably be found within many urban areas in each square mile. These will already provide interference to municipal projects if everyone insists on using 2.4-2.5 GHz.