[HN Gopher] We may soon have city-spanning 900 MHz mesh networks ___________________________________________________________________ We may soon have city-spanning 900 MHz mesh networks Author : RiderOfGiraffes Score : 179 points Date : 2021-03-07 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (cheapskatesguide.org) (TXT) w3m dump (cheapskatesguide.org) | throwanem wrote: | > 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? | Triv888 wrote: | A true open wireless mesh network is what the internet needs to | become to overcome censorship and similar issues. | datameta wrote: | 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. | lwhi wrote: | Why do I want this as a consumer? | choeger wrote: | 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? | londons_explore wrote: | Amazon isn't in the business of being evil to the public. If | they did, they would lose massively more revenue than they gain | from a few smart meters. | | You should be more worried about companies where you are the | product not the customer... | [deleted] | sgt wrote: | Fits perfectly with the technology I imagined for the post- | apocalypse: Gopher, lynx and text messages! | dboreham wrote: | And it will be slow with crappy QoS. | bri3d wrote: | 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. | jeffypoo wrote: | I tried (and failed) to build a GoTenna competitor using LoRa | and what you say here is 100% correct. Large scale mesh | networks are incredibly difficult to build and often end up | requiring extreme optimizations for specific use cases. We | ultimately abandoned mesh networking in favor of a TDMA | approach with base stations. | | "smart home without the WiFi configuration" is exactly what | Amazon's network is for, but it won't be anything more than | that. The bandwidth and latencies required for content rich | applications is simply not there. Sidewalk is cool enough | without trying to sell the magic mesh network pipe dream. | joshmlewis wrote: | I don't often see FPV related knowledge on HN. I've wondered if | others were aware of these implementations and it's cool to see | them mentioned here. | AtlasBarfed wrote: | So basically for IoT. | tmiahm wrote: | A network for Amazon devices is certainly one use case. Another | is selling network access to other IoT devices. | | I would expect most residential broadband TOS would explicitly | prevent reselling their network bandwidth/access. That's what | you are doing with networks like Helium, even if it is in the | form of a token instead of dollars. Amazon has gotten around | this by just not paying. You buy the Amazon device, you provide | the network access, Amazon gets the revenue. | blacksmith_tb wrote: | That makes sense, I had wondered about the crypto angle on | Helium. Then again, even if you were relaying a lot of | messages from sensors etc. I wouldn't expect it would | actually add up to a very big percentage of your total usage | (I guess it'd be 24/7, unlike your Netflix/Zoom consumption). | So it seems a little implausible your ISP would care (or | notice), unless they wanted to get into that business | themselves? | bri3d wrote: | Yes, Amazon already offer a Sidewalk SDK as part of AWS IoT | offerings. I didn't even think about the cost angle, which is | a really interesting point (although, I think ISPs have an | argument against the Amazon devices here still as it's | effectively connection sharing, which they also usually ban | in ToS). My consideration was just for the customer sales | pitch, which is "your IoT devices Just Work magically." | chrismorgan wrote: | > _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._ | | That's not several orders of magnitude, that's only 3x. Both | figures are kilobits per second. | | I would also mention that the Amazon Sidewalk thing is for a | hybrid of Bluetooth Low Energy and 900 MHz, and it's quite | plausible that that 80 Kbps could only be achieved over the | close-range Bluetooth and not in the long-range 900 MHz | frequency. As an outsider to the industry with no specific | knowledge of what actually caps LoRaWAN's speed, I'm going to | wildly guess that this 900 MHz band, in _whatever_ guise, may | be more likely to yield 10-20 Kbps speeds in good conditions. | greggyb wrote: | Hey, that's more than an order of magnitude in binary! Great | way to make a doubling (or greater) sound bigger than it is. | chrismorgan wrote: | Still not several. :D | klyrs wrote: | "Order of magnitude" is one of my linguistic pet peeves. | I've seen it used referring to base 2, base 10, base | 1000, and base 1024. What does it all mean? In base | 2^(1/100), trebling is many, many orders of magnitude | increase! | chrismorgan wrote: | "Order of magnitude" is context-dependent, like a great | many things in natural language. In the absence of any | contrary context, it'll mean a decimal order of magnitude | in English. It will do you no good to rail against the | inclusion of cultural context in resolving the meaning of | language (and even its structural parsing!), because it's | so very widespread in English and I presume in every | other natural language (though logical languages could | potentially theoretically evade it). | | I've never encountered non-integral bases in real life, | but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- | integer_base_of_numeration tells me they are sometimes | used. Fun stuff! | klyrs wrote: | Agreed, railing against language and cultural context is | literally futile. Factoradic is the one true base. There, | "order of magnitude" would depend not only upon (my very | unique) cultural context but also the absolute magnitude | involved (at the low end, "double" is an order of | magnitude; then "triple", then "quadruple", etc). | 1123581321 wrote: | I prefer to say "several times larger/greater" and it is | even fewer syllables! "Order of magnitude" works better | for convincing people to do something your way, though. | jrockway wrote: | The only logical base to use here is 2.71828182. | bri3d wrote: | My fault, I thought the figures in the article were kilobytes | (and even then, I suppose it's just a single order of | magnitude in base-10!). I don't think this mistake affects my | point. | chrismorgan wrote: | The universal convention is: b = bits, B = bytes. I see | errors only rarely, and they're almost always when people | write Mb or Gb instead of MB or GB (just MB, not MB per | second or such). It also fascinates me how we | conventionally write Mbps (with a p), but MB/s (with a /). | trepetti wrote: | It also has a proprietary PHY protocol, which always struck me | as an major downside to something whose adoption is closing to | making it the next de facto standard. DASH7 [1] is an | interesting alternative in this regard, good for urban areas, | but not quite as long range for very sparse nodes in a rural | environment. It does not the same duty cycle limitations that | LoRa has and is actually used to complement LoRa even on the | same device in some interesting case studies [2] which come | from Semtech themselves (the patent holders on the LoRa PHY). | | [1] https://dash7-alliance.org/ [2] https://tech- | journal.semtech.com/making-the-most-of-the-unli... | icedchai wrote: | Also, with LoRaWAN, devices have duty cycle limitations. They | can't hog all the bandwidth for a extended period of time. It | is really intended just for short, bursty, infrequent | transmissions like you describe. | d21d3q wrote: | That limitation is not specific to LoRa but to anything | transmitting in ISM band e.g. ~868 MHz in EU, ~900 MHz in US. | It limits single transmitters air time to 1% so that one can | build radio communication with any modulation, any protocol | and limits probability of collision with different devices in | range. | | I wonder if ISM band will provide dedicated spectrum for LoRa | with unlimited airtime. | elihu wrote: | I'm pretty sure that's not true for 2.4 ghz part 15 devices | in the U.S. (i.e. 802.11 wireless). | | (I had thought that ISM referred specifically to the 2.4 | ghz band, but I guess there is actually more than one band. | I do find it funny that that one of the most heavily used | spectrum bands is the one where we put all the | unintentional radiators like microwave ovens and industrial | and medical devices, and then the FCC decided that we might | as well let people do unlicensed transmission on that "junk | band" because it wouldn't be interfering with anything | "important". It's sort of the policy equivalent of the | common phenomenon where over time the most important | services eventually often end up running on the oldest, | slowest computer.) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_radio_band | myself248 wrote: | I don't think that applies to 900MHz in the US. It | definitely does to 433 and I think 315, though. | anthk wrote: | 433 and multiples are harmonics. | cjhdev wrote: | I think this depends on the region. In the US you shouldn't | exceed a dwell time limit on a single channel. | heyrhett wrote: | 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. | | https://explorer.helium.com/coverage | ja27 wrote: | 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. | sokoloff wrote: | > 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. | KaiserPro wrote: | 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 | rkagerer wrote: | 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. | lxgr wrote: | > new random consumer junk | | Like wireless phone headsets? | | What makes your use of this public band more important than | that of others? | rkagerer wrote: | In fairness, that headset is something I rely on every day, | for hours of the day. | | The article says Amazon began shipping this feature in its | products secretly, so 'junk' in the sense that consumers | didn't ask for the feature and it's crowding the medium | mainly for Amazon's benefit. | | (Ps. This was authored before you edited your comment) | lxgr wrote: | Arguably, being able to find a lost pet or wallet is not | only Amazon's benefit. (Yes, it's a for-profit company | selling the equipment, but isn't that true for headsets as | well?) | | As long as spectrum fairness is ensured (and I think there | are pretty strict rules on duty cycles for the 900 MHz | band, i.e. any given device can't be transmitting more than | a few seconds every few minutes), I think it is up to the | owners of the band to decide what's critical and what | isn't: The public. | | If you think about it, hours of phone calls every day are | probably a more significant use of that spectrum than all | lost cats and dogs of a city combined. | mproud wrote: | Good old Hydrogen... Mozzerella? | mnemotronic wrote: | Hondo-mega? hega-mertz? Ronna-hertz & Quecca-hertz just doesn't | do it for me. | amenghra wrote: | Nit: HMz in title looks like a typo. If anyone wants to fix. | dang wrote: | Fixed. Thanks! | nsb1 wrote: | 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. | kumarvvr wrote: | 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. | anthk wrote: | Eh, no. You must be young. Email works perfectly on low bw | conns. So does IRC, and Gopher. | notriddle wrote: | Email's fine for low-bandwidth, high-latency mesh wireless. | | IRC and Gopher are not. The latency, and potential | unreliability, would kill it. | anthk wrote: | https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/irc-over-lora-for-when- | thing... | | If not, maybe icb uses less bw. | | EDIT | | Also: | | https://github.com/dmahony/LoRa-AX25-IP-Network | pomian wrote: | But, what will power it? Would each installation have a battery | and solar panel? Maybe a good idea, small units should be | installed, similar to those cheap night lights, if some fail | ok, but enough for basic Comms. | londons_explore wrote: | 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). | sneak wrote: | It's ridiculously easy to disrupt low power wireless networks | of any kind, no matter what the protocol or standard. | | Anyone can make the whole mesh stop working today, even without | a password. | londons_explore wrote: | With Wifi, I can easily disrupt within a few hundred yards of | my house. But disrupting something a few miles away is much | harder. | | With a mesh network, the network is much bigger, which makes | it important an attacker can only disrupt their small corner | of the network. | ac29 wrote: | > But disrupting something a few miles away is much harder. | | If you follow the rules. Presumably an attacker wouldn't | care about that, and would be happy to dump a few orders of | magnitude extra power into their jamming signal. | 177tcca wrote: | A big one set off from a mile up is the normal way science | fiction predicts the chaos begins. | decker wrote: | 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. | m463 wrote: | 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. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freifunk | varispeed wrote: | 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... | amelius wrote: | Bitcoin is used by criminals, and it still exists, _and_ it is | legal. | DanielR31D wrote: | So is cash | amelius wrote: | Not nearly as convenient. | augusto-moura wrote: | > between 500 meters and a mile in urban areas | | Good way to confuse both imperialists and metricists | Filligree wrote: | In some metric countries, a "mile" is 10 km. | brokenmachine wrote: | Which countries? | Scoundreller wrote: | 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. | ultrarunner wrote: | This is interesting. Do you mean services like Iridium, or | something newer? What projects did you have in mind? | lxgr wrote: | Myriota [1] sounds very interesting. It's exactly what GP | describes if I'm not mistaken! | | [1] https://myriota.com/ | Scoundreller wrote: | This is one I've seen: | | https://www.keplercommunications.com | | Iridium is a << live >> network... with much high costs of | construction and operation. | haarts wrote: | What would you use it for? Some IoT project? | Scoundreller wrote: | A cabin or hike without (or poor) cell service where this | would provide just enough connectivity to real life. | | I like the idea of being able to read the news and maintain | comms but can live without live 2-way video. | | Also cool to imagine there will be a nano/micro cubesats with | a enough gbs in SSDs circling earth every couple hours making | that possible. | | Could have different levels if priorities to balance | supply/demand. | ghshephard wrote: | 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. | minitoar wrote: | 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. | londons_explore wrote: | 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. | freedomben wrote: | Not trying to nitpick, but IP handles that just fine (see | mosh[1] for a great example of flawless roaming). | | It's the TCP that doesn't handle it. Unfortunately HTTP and | most other protocols are on top of TCP so suffer from the same | problem. | | [1]: https://mosh.org/ | londons_explore wrote: | IP doesn't handle it fine. | | If I roam from network A to network B, then someone else | cannot send me an IP packet till they know my address on | network B. | | I can only send out a "Hey, I'm now at this address" message | to them if I know they will be wanting to contact me, and I | know my own address has changed. Neither of those is | guaranteed. | Nextgrid wrote: | I believe "Mobile IP" was designed to solve this exact | problem. | freedomben wrote: | You're not wrong about the other party needing to know your | changed IP address, but that's still a result of higher | level protocols that are leaking the abstraction of IP for | addressing. You could use hostnames instead, or put some | other addressing method on top of it to adapt. It's not | commonly done since you'd have a DNS lookup before each | packet, which would be horribly inefficient, but it's | possible because IP itself doesn't handle the details of | connections. IP itself is connectionless/stateless. | | There is no concept in IP of a "user", "client", or other | party that exists beyond the lifetime of that packet. IP is | basically a stateless logical address sitting on top of | some physical address with a few delivery options to | facilitate traffic flow (like congestion handling). | | Any connection state or concept of user/client/server/etc | is held at either the TCP level, or for UDP-based protocol | higher up the stack (commonly at the application level). | | If you still insist on IP being at fault here, let's | consider an analogue. If a user sets up an Amazon | subscribe-and-save, and then moves to another city and has | a different physical address, but the user does not inform | Amazon by updating their address in Amazon's system (the | higher level protocol), would you say that the postal | service is at fault when the delivery ends up reaching the | an incorrect party? | teeray wrote: | This is part of the special sauce that LTE adds, so that | you can pretend that IP handles roaming just fine. That and | also QoS guarantees, which IP also doesn't do out of the | box. | marcthe12 wrote: | IP breaks but there are way to workaround if layer 4 allows. | Unfortunately TCP also breaks. UDP allow a workaround over | that. So MOSH(SSH) and QUIC(HTTP/3) can deal with this due | basically due to having nachnism to handle it and also they are | UDP. Also both have some kind of cryptography layer such as SSH | or TLS so prob that is use to handle it. | mordechai9000 wrote: | You currently can't change your endpoint address on existing | connections without breaking them, unless you have a protocol | that's aware of the possibility and uses a broker or some other | method to re-establish the link. This wouldn't really be any | different. I don't think you'd want your network address to | change on a mesh, it would just find a different path to reach | it. | | It might make sense to use something similar to MPLS that can | encapsulate IP, to hide the details of the mesh network. | rjsw wrote: | There is MobileIP [1]. I have MobileIPv6 compiled into all my | mobile devices and home gateway. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_IP | ajsfoux234 wrote: | There's the Multipath TCP protocol for use cases like this: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipath_TCP | | For example, Apple already uses it when you ask Siri a question | on an iOS device. Hopefully this standard gains more usage. | londons_explore wrote: | Multipath TCP sadly seems to have died... I believe it was | incompatible with internal load balancing systems at some big | companies, so nobody deployed it. | toast0 wrote: | Apple deployed it in iOS and macos. You can access it as a | developer of either. | | There is a load balancing issue, but I don't think it's any | worse than http/3 which also allows for peers to change IP | (http/3 has a much limited scope of changes). | ryukafalz wrote: | I mean, I haven't deployed it on my own servers just | because it still requires a kernel fork to enable on Linux. | There was an effort to upstream it as of late 2019 though; | not sure if that's stalled, but I can understand it taking | a long time as I believe it's a pretty big change to the | Linux networking stack. | rmoriz wrote: | 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. | | See https://lora.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ | darig wrote: | Actual laws and regulations have nothing to do with why this | will be prevented. Telecom lobby money on its own has been | working for decades. | ac29 wrote: | There are no duty cycle limitations for 900MHz in the US. Its | regulated largely like 2.4GHz (see 47 CFR SS 15.247). There are | rules for frequency hopping systems that limit the amount of | time you can dwell on any given channel, but there are less | restrictions on non-hopping systems. High-ish bandwidth 900MHz | radios are pretty common and can do multiple megabits per | second (at least with enough signal-to-noise ratio, which isnt | always practical over non-trivial distances). | rmoriz wrote: | The duty cycle limits by ETSI are in place because of the | population/usage density. If FCC does not put in place a | regulation there will no shared high bandwidth usage over a | long distance in high density areas. Think of 2.4 GHz WiFi. | jeffypoo wrote: | Can you share some examples of high bandwidth 900 radios? In | my experience, it's difficult to get bitrates above ~100kbps | on 900 over any meaningful distance. | jamiek88 wrote: | Yeah I'd be very happy to be pointed in the direction of a | multiple megabit per second 900 radio. Take my money! | KirillPanov wrote: | I have the Ubiquiti M900 radios. With a (~5-foot) yagi | they definitely deliver the advertized 100mbit/sec. | myself248 wrote: | The Ubiquiti Rocket M900 would be a good place to start. | | Or if you have a couple old Ricochet E-radios and want to | do some packet hacking, they'll do 1Mbaud at whatever | modulation you ask. | ac29 wrote: | I work with industrial grade 900MHz radios, and most can do | over 1Mbps... with enough SNR, which as I mentioned can be | difficult. I would say a typical ~city sized network I've | worked on tend to operate in 100-1000kbps modes, with real | world throughputs maxing out at more like 300-400 kbps on | typically 1-10 mile links. | | Manufacturers include FreeWave, GE MDS, XetaWave, 4RF, and | others. These are typically ~$1000 radios, so not great for | hobbyist use. | altcognito wrote: | 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. | porsupah wrote: | 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! | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service) | Animats wrote: | I had Ricochet. It was OK, but slow. It used little units | bolted under street lights, with a little spiral antenna | pointed down. It was abandoned in place some years later. You | could still use it to talk to nearby locations, but the | connection to the external Internet was gone. | | It's certainly possible to build a 900MHz mesh network, but it | can't deliver much bandwidth. Email and SMS, yes. Voice, only | on slow days. Today's web, no way. It would be like building a | network for Blackberries. | | One of the more successful off-grid comm systems is | SailMail.[1] This is worldwide email, over 10MHz, for boats. | Down at 10MHz, radio can cross oceans. This was a side project | of Stan Honey, who invented car navigation systems. He's | seriously into sailing and holds records for crossing the | Atlantic, sailing around the world, and such. So he developed | this for the long-distance sail community. They maintain about | 25 fixed stations around the world, and if you can connect to | any of them over HF, you can send and receive email. | | [1] https://sailmail.com/ | Nextgrid wrote: | Out of curiosity, do you know if some units are still around? | The Wikipedia page isn't clear as to what happened to the | existing hardware after the last acquirer's liquidation - was | it just left in place, did the municipalities explicitly | remove them or repurposed them for something else? | Animats wrote: | Some were around for years, but I haven't seen one in a | while. I suppose they were removed as part of normal | street-light maintenance. There may be some nodes, | somewhere, still trying to connect. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | > Voice, only on slow days | | Then why did we have 900 MHz analog cordless phones in the | 1990s? | vel0city wrote: | It's not necessarily a limitation of bandwidth possible at | 900MHz, it's a limitation of the normal equipment deployed | and inefficiencies of mesh routing. | | Those 900MHz analog phones were also usually low power, low | distance, analog only devices with a few number of | channels. Try having dozens of those phones all in the same | room and see how useful they all are at once. | spullara wrote: | It was amazing. And then we went on a dry spell for a few years | after it was shut down and tethering wasn't a thing. | londons_explore wrote: | 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. | sebow wrote: | I would say that's mainly a software/vendor | issue(standardization, because we're not necessarily gonna wait | years for ISO here).Not to mention routers/similar hardware are | not robust enough for becoming part of a mesh infrastructure: | usually low-quality and very rare updates, shitty software, | most often than not locked-down access to them,etc.(Obviously | exceptions like ~Asus for ex. exist, but the vast majority of | people have something way worse that is not "hackable") | | If anything a dynamic and robust mesh network through mobile | devices seem more potent. Of course this would only work in | massively dense areas.And with Wifi-6 we're reaching a point | where the accumulated bandwidth could be enough. | tmiahm wrote: | 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... | EvanAnderson wrote: | 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. | myself248 wrote: | Truly. I used to run Ricochet.wikispaces.com and am sitting on | a mountain of docs and stuff. Can't believe they managed to | market it into the dirt and burn through five billion bucks. | EvanAnderson wrote: | I still have a couple of the old modems lying around | somewhere. There wasn't ever service where I live, but I | played around w/ direct modem-to-modem communication. It was | fun. | danimal88 wrote: | 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. | judge2020 wrote: | Surely the data is over either HTTPS or some encrypted VPN | protocol - the only possible attack would be DOS. | c22 wrote: | Well, you could also attack the implementation. | lxgr wrote: | 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. | Abishek_Muthian wrote: | 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. | spiritplumber wrote: | Already do in San Rafael, CA. | | http://f3.to/cellsol/ here's firmware and schematics, add to it! | :) | dmqctx wrote: | "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? | eevilspock wrote: | {off topic} | | I don't normally like pink but I'm loving this black serif text | on this shade of pink (#FFD4F5) background. | ACAVJW4H wrote: | 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 | decker wrote: | There's FCC rules on how the space can be used to prevent what | you are describing. Sure, this will increase the noise floor, | but Amazon can't show up and start acting like they are the | only ones allowed to use it. | ac29 wrote: | > My understanding is that ISM bands are supposed to be free | for personal use | | They are also free for use by businesses and governments. The | rules make no distinction (other bands do have eligibility | restrictions). | | > last fronts for small scale connectivity innovation | | Amateur radio operators would beg to to differ. You can do a | _lot_ with a relatively easy to get amateur radio license, and | it is restricted from commercial use. | sneak wrote: | You're still allowed to use them free for personal use, as are | the personal users who bought Amazon-branded hardware. | | Nothing is being gobbled. | matthewdgreen wrote: | >Nothing is being gobbled. | | I mean, I disagree with your opinion here. It's entirely | possible that we end up in a world where corporations use all | of the unlicensed spectrum to operate their corporate | networks (on "user-owned hardware" that is centrally | coordinated and controlled), leaving very little of it to | alternative uses. There is only so much unlicensed spectrum | so this is very much a realistic outcome, especially if the | "user-owned devices" are coordinated and designed to maximize | the company's use of the spectrum. I think "gobbling" is a | pretty accurate description of this. | | What you are saying is that our current legislation around | these bands permits that use, in the same way that it might | be legal for Amazon to house all of its workers on public | land in some states. The question to ask is whether this is | actually good. | giantrobot wrote: | I'm not intending to defend Amazon but as a general | statement about ISM bands: there are regulatory limits | (output power, duty cycle, etc) on these bands. The output | power limits are meant to limit the propagation distances | from isotropic radiators. | | So for Amazon's (or any) system to swamp the ISM band(s) | they would need to absolutely saturate an area with their | radios. That would end up running at cross purposes with | their network since their own base stations and user | devices would end up interfering with each other. | | While I don't trust Amazon to do the "right" thing I do | trust them not to step on their own toes. | gruez wrote: | >It's entirely possible that we end up in a world where | corporations use all of the unlicensed spectrum to operate | their corporate networks (on "user-owned hardware" that is | centrally coordinated and controlled), leaving very little | of it to alternative uses. | | Why does there need to be a distinction? What's the | difference between amazon's sidewalk network compared to an | at&t wifi router? | matthewdgreen wrote: | The answer to this question depends entirely on what the | hardware does and how much it prevents other uses. | sokoloff wrote: | Have the 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz unlicensed bands become | unusable by device proliferation? What makes you fear the | 900 MHz band will be meaningfully different? | matthewdgreen wrote: | > Have the 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz unlicensed bands become | unusable by device proliferation? What makes you fear the | 900 MHz band will be meaningfully different? | | We are both commenting on an article that describes how a | massive corporation (Amazon) might be deploying large- | scale mesh networks on this band, and using this to drive | huge numbers of devices at near the maximum feasible | bitrate. This is obviously a speculative article and | maybe none of this will come to pass. But within the | bounds of speculation, this seems qualitatively different | than what's happened (as of today) on the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz | bands. | sokoloff wrote: | That's why I cite the other bands; this is what has | happened already in the US and Europe on the other | unlicensed bands. | | Looking at my WiFi network right now, I have 2 APs and 25 | clients connected (8 of which are amazon-). When I turn | on my TVs, those power up a few additional clients | (Chromecasts and FireTVs) on WiFi. I can see between 12 | and 18 other networks depending on when I scan (plus who | knows how many that aren't broadcasting SSIDs). | | Is Amazon likely to be able to put _more_ devices on Lora | than I have on WiFi now? More concentrated than NYC or | Paris WiFi is today? | | The maximum bitrate the article references is not a | Shannon-Hartley bitrate limit, but rather a fairness- | limited maximum transmission duty cycle to ensure other, | also unlicensed users can access the spectrum. | matthewdgreen wrote: | Edited to rephrase as a question rather than an argument: | How much is the "fair duty cycle" mandated by the law, | and how much is politeness? My understanding is that | multiple providers could be competing in this space and | (if this system is popular) they may want larger and | larger slices of that cycle. I don't know what the law | requires here, so I don't know that there's any | requirement that personal WiFi users need to get much if | any spectrum once every corporate user has taken their | piece. | giantrobot wrote: | Unlicensed spectrum doesn't mean unregulated. It just | means individual users of devices don't need operator | licenses. To facilitate that operations in unlicensed | bands have regulatory operating limits. Devices are under | the general rules covering harmful interference (don't | cause it), accepting interference from licensed | operations (you must accept it), and basic electronic | device regulations. | matthewdgreen wrote: | But a corporate player or players can deploy a lot of | devices that individually comply and eat up a lot of the | available bandwidth, making personal applications like | Wifi less functional. And moreover: once there's a | financial incentive to do this (which really resilient | mesh networks will provide) the financial incentives to | use this bandwidth may be much greater than they have | been historically, and saying "well it hasn't happened | yet so it won't be a problem" offers very little | predictive value. This is my concern, and I am open to | being convinced that the regulations in place will | prevent this. So far none of the comments in this thread | have given me a convincing reason not to worry, though | it's nice that someone actually posted the (individual | device) transmission limits. | jeffypoo wrote: | https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/15.247 | asah wrote: | for a taste of citywide mesh: https://www.nycmesh.net/ | | impressive map: https://www.nycmesh.net/map | | I'm not sure about latency... | DanAtC wrote: | https://disaster.radio/ is more apt. | | NYC Mesh is built from discrete, high bandwidth (very high | relative to LoRA) point-to-point radios. Assuming all the links | in a path are healthy, latency should be excellent. | kylegalbraith wrote: | 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. | pmorici wrote: | Check out Helium it's a proof of coverage crypto currency. The | "mining" is proof of coverage. Believe it operates in the | 900Mhz ISM band. Something like this could probably solve the | hole problem because it incentivizes people to run access | points were there isn't coverage | | https://www.helium.com/ | Natales wrote: | I find Althea [1] a lot more interesting than Helium, where | their crypto is used basically as an incentive model for | bandwidth, with no proprietary hardware or software in the | mix. | | [1] https://althea.net/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-07 23:00 UTC)