Start-up pegs hopes on hops in mesh wireless LAN

LAS VEGAS - Just days after the Federal Communications Commission gave its technology a green light, MeshNetworks  this week is expected to begin shipping its peer-to-peer product line that creates a new architecture for wireless LANs.

Instead of client devices connecting to a wireless access point, the MeshNetworks routing software turns any 802.11b or 802.11a  wireless LAN adapter card into a router-repeater. Client devices can hop through each other to reach an access point attached to a wired LAN or backhaul net.

The new products - the MeshLAN Multi-Hopping 802.11b AP400 Access Point and WR400 Wireless Router, and the Mesh Enabled Architecture (MEA) Intelligent Access Point and Wireless Router - are being demonstrated this week at the Comdex trade show.

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LAS VEGAS - Just days after the Federal Communications Commission gave its technology a green light, MeshNetworks  this week is expected to begin shipping its peer-to-peer product line that creates a new architecture for wireless LANs.

Instead of client devices connecting to a wireless access point, the MeshNetworks routing software turns any 802.11b or 802.11a  wireless LAN adapter card into a router-repeater. Client devices can hop through each other to reach an access point attached to a wired LAN or backhaul net.

The new products - the MeshLAN Multi-Hopping 802.11b AP400 Access Point and WR400 Wireless Router, and the Mesh Enabled Architecture (MEA) Intelligent Access Point and Wireless Router - are being demonstrated this week at the Comdex trade show.

Company officials say that by creating a mesh network instead of a hierarchical network, the software provides a number of benefits, including:

• Offering users several wireless pathways to an access point.
• Extending a client's range far beyond the 100 to 300 feet of 802.11b wireless LANs by hopping through other devices.
• Sustaining data rates at typical 5M to 7M bit/sec throughput over longer distances than is possible with today's 802.11b wireless LANs.
• Adding hours to battery life, because "smart hopping" uses much less power than a hierarchical network.

The FCC strictly controls the power output of wireless devices, based on the frequencies in which the devices operate. As a result, physics dictates that if you increase distance between devices, throughput drops; and, at a given power level, the only way to increase throughput is to shorten the distance between devices.

The MeshNetworks software, originally developed as a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project to create flexible, self-healing battlefield networks, lets a PDA hop through a series of laptops, wireless-equipped printers or other handhelds, and still maintain the maximum 802.11b throughput, says Rick Rotondo, vice president of technical marketing for the company.

The MeshNetworks product lines are aimed at enterprise wireless LANs and wireless LAN services from carriers and service providers. The software algorithms created by the company's engineers minimize the latency caused by hopping to less than 5 msec per hop and juggle the complexities involved in routing packets among a group of devices, all which might be moving in relationship to each other.

At a demonstration mesh network covering five square miles of Maitland, Fla., where the company is located, Rotondo says he would drive prospects around in a car, as they made wireless LAN voice-over-IP calls, surfed the Internet, downloaded real-time stock quotes or even listened to an Internet radio station, all without stopping, all without interruptions.

MeshLAN and MEA differ only in their radio technologies. In essence, MeshLAN is code added to any 802.11b radio card via silicon or via firmware on a network interface card. MeshNetworks will make the code available for 802.11a wireless LAN products also.