
Ask HN: Can a mesh network replace fiber? - philippnagel
or is using fiber inevitable?
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PaulHoule
No.

Mesh networks are like the millimeter wave fairy. People want to believe in
it, but it is not real.

Every time you transmit a radio packet there is a chance that it will
interfere with a packet or be interfered with by another packet. Note there
are two factors so interference goes as the square of the number of packets.

Want fast wifi?

Gave a wired router in your house and connect it with Ethernet to a wireless
access point in the middle of the house. If your house is big, get more access
points.

Wireless repeater add more hops, more latency, more interference. It is not
necessarily true that adding nodes adds performance, often the opposite is
true.

People today think wires are ritually unclean and they will suffer for
unreliable and broken tech because of it.

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gravypod
A mesh network can use fiber. A mesh network is just a network where there are
redundant connections between all systems on the network.

This does not limit us to RF for everything. We CAN use fiber in a mesh
network.

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grizzles
The technology side is feasible. The economic / critical mass proposition is a
bigger problem. I tested the idea of a static mesh network, but there was too
little interest in it. See here:
[http://tricorder.org/eric/upliink.html](http://tricorder.org/eric/upliink.html)

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niftich
Replace fiber where? The backhaul (from your neighborhood junction box to the
Internet) or the last mile?

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wmf
If the link rate of the mesh is ~4 Gbps maybe it could come close to providing
1 Gbps per customer.

