Mesh Networks Explained, and Why You Should Care About This New Technology

Published on: December 20th, 2017

IN the beginning man scratched in the earth with a stick. This method had its limitations. While he could share information with those standing next to him, he was unable to share that information with neighboring tribes, and he experienced the devastation of lost data every time it rained.   Things didn’t improve much with smoke signal technology either – information could be shared with neighbors, but again, the rains made data transmission impossible.

Fast forward a hundred thousand years or so and Man invents the computer, complete with a tape backup drive which he even occasionally uses. Seeing how useful the computer was at work, Man decided he could improve upon that by bringing the computer home, where he would be available to work 24/7 instead of the mere 8 hours a day he was accustomed to. The Man’s family, seeing how enjoyable it was to watch the Man work (and play Pong), requested an additional computer, which the Man brought home and connected to the first computer, and voila! the Home Area Network (HAN) was born.

From its humble beginnings the HAN has evolved from a simple “peer-to-peer” wired network into a Local Area Network (LAN), a complex wireless array of computer devices that route information and connection data from device to device at a higher rate of speed than anyone who ever used a Commodore 64 dared dream possible.

Local Area Network

While manufacturers of devices like modems and routers work continuously to enhance those devices’ capabilities to accommodate the ever-growing list of connected things (remember our recent article on the Internet of Things?), until recently very little if anything was done to resolve the “dead zones” within our homes. Due to our homes’ architecture and electronic “noise” from various electric appliances, signals sometimes simply cannot get through and the internet connection is frustratingly lost. Again and again.

Although it is possible that upgrading your router to the newest, most powerful model may solve that issue in your home, due to architecture and construction materials, that alone may not be adequate, and this is where the “Mesh Network” takes the evolution of the Home Area Network to a revolution.

Imagine a swatch of wire mesh with a round “node” at every intersection. There you have the basic idea of the Mesh Network. “In a wireless mesh network, the network connection is spread out among dozens or even hundreds of wireless mesh nodes that “talk” to each other to share the network connection across a large area.”   The nodes are programmed with software that tells them how to interact within the larger network, with information travelling across the network by hopping wirelessly from one node to the next. They are so smart that they automatically choose the fastest and safest path by a process called “dynamic routing.” The nodes are also “self-healing” in that if a node is blocked or has lost its signal, the network will automatically find another reliable path to send data. If a node is added to the mesh network, the network will “self-configure” to automatically incorporate the new node.

A great thing about the wireless mesh network is that the nodes are easy to install and uninstall, which makes the network very adaptable – it can easily be expanded or reduced as coverage requirements change. Today’s typical router provides a coverage area of about 2,000 square feet (which may leave your basement or pool area outside of the covered area), but a wireless mesh network can easily provide up to 20,000 square feet of seamless coverage, and can even be expanded beyond that.

Have you been dealing with the aggravating effects of dead zones in your home or business? We can help by replacing your current network with a new Mesh Network of appropriate size to insure the seamless integration of all your connected devices. Give us a call today! 203.702.2103

 

 

Sources:
Wikipedia: Home Network
Wikipedia: Net History
Lifewire: Major Events in the History of Computer Networks
HowStuffWorks.com: How Wireless mesh Networks Work
Wikipedia: Wireless Mesh network

 

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