Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » On the forthcoming reality of self-organizing wireless networks

September 24, 2003 | Comments: (0)

On the forthcoming reality of self-organizing wireless networks

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An afternoon panel here at the MIT Emerging Technologies conference in Cambridge, Mass, focused on self organizing wireless networks, a.k.a. mesh networks.

A Technology Review editor moderating the panel started it off by saying that the panelists would not be discussing cell phone networks, Wi-Fi, or 802.11 standards. Good! Even though I enjoy the freedom WiFi provides me with today, it was refreshing to learn that the panel would concentrate on the concept of ad hoc wireless networks.

Peter Stanforth, CTO of Mesh Networks, showed us a slide explaining mesh networks -- the technology, not the company. I managed to jot down most of it:

Meshing = Range increase, low power and high data rates
Meshing = greater system capacity
Meshing + power control = less interference and more scalability in dense net-works
Meshing = only way to support robust, IP data traffic

He also said that a range of 800-900 square miles will be possible in the near future.

Lakshman Krishnamurthy, senior staff engineer in the network architecture lab at Intel said that the company is working on an application that enables wireless net-works to be built on an ad hoc basis in conference rooms. He didn't offer a timeframe in which it will come to market, but did say the next steps are to scale deployment and demonstrate ROI.

Naturally, the discussion turned toward obstacles facing mesh networks, namely a current lack of standards and algorithms. All agreed that there won't be one single networking standard, rather co-existence of networks built on various standards will be paramount.

Tonight is Technology Review magazine's awards dinner for recipients of its TR100 innovators award. I doubt that will warrant its own blog entry, but you can read about the winners.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on September 24, 2003 12:19 PM

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