Mesh Momentum

Before the disciples of Wi-Fi could truly make good on their promise to radically reconstruct the fabric of consumer wireless architecture last year, a group of lesser-known technology vendors was already promising an even more radical movement to one-up Wi-Fi.

Mesh — or ad hoc — technology would turn each end point in the network into another router. Cell phones and Wi-Fi enabled laptops, for example, would send and receive signals from each other, not just from cell towers or access points. Users would get a bandwidth boost by hopping across end users to distant access points and towers. And power consumption would decrease as signals make shorter hops. The more users, the better quality service they get.

“The concept is not to shout at high power from a cell site,” said Rick Rotundo, vice president of technical marketing for Mesh Networks. “It's to whisper to your neighbor who passes it along.”

The whispering is growing louder. Mesh Networks, the budding movement's eponymous lead trumpeter, claims it has more than 20 installations on three continents (mostly trials). Domestically, at least six unnamed companies are testing the gear — a mix of Wi-Fi players, wireless equipment OEMs, even automotive electronics makers.

In March the IEEE voted to consider standardization for wireless meshes, which Rotundo guessed should emerge in about two years. But the more important vote is that from the private industry, where meshes are also gaining popularity.

In February, Intel's Network Architecture Lab demonstrated a prototype of the technology at a developer forum in San Jose, signaling the possibility that Intel could someday push meshes with the same force it's pushing Wi-Fi now. But an Intel spokeswoman said the space won't see momentum for three to five years, and even then mesh networks might be best applied to closed environments like enterprises and home networking.

Originally developed by DARPA for combat communication among field troops, ad hoc networks are already gathering a rapt audience in disaster recovery and emergency response circles. Mesh Networks is hoping governments and municipalities will deploy the initial gear: softball-sized, low-power transmitters that affix to streetlights and the like, carry 6 Mb/s of data and cost about $2000 each. From there the movement will turn to commercial and consumer markets, Rotundo said, despite any resistance from mobile carriers still beholden to their 3G investments.

“They're not going to have a choice,” Rotundo said. “We're coming at this from the bottom up. Once this stuff gets a toehold, it grows organically.”