Home Mesh Wi-Fi Coming This Summer From eero

[stevech]

TDD-LTE is not today's LTE (in the US anyway).
TDD-LTE was/is a time division duplexing (TDD) form of LTE. GSM uses/used TDD.

 

[remixedcat]

What bands is it in?

 

[sfx2000]

so its backend is LTE? that's wierd but cool

It's not LTE per se, as the LTE protocol stack is overkill for an application like this - my best guess is that it would be more like 802.16...

 

[sfx2000]

TDD-LTE is not today's LTE (in the US anyway).
TDD-LTE was/is a time division duplexing (TDD) form of LTE. GSM uses/used TDD.

2.5GHz that Sprint is deploying is TDD-LTE, as that is unpaired spectrum... they're FDD in the 800/850/1900 bands...

 

[azazel1024]

Are you sure it is using something other than one of the 802.11 schemes for the backhaul? Nothing I read on their website suggests it is anything other than dynamically choosing which radio to use based on client activity, but still using 802.11 and not TDMA, TDD or similar.

 

[stevech]

2.5GHz that Sprint is deploying is TDD-LTE, as that is unpaired spectrum... they're FDD in the 800/850/1900 bands...

Sprint is ever the goof-ball. Smartphone makers for US customers won't want to spend much R&D on TD-LTE.

Maybe Sprint is again trying to recycle their ill-gotten MMDS spectrum in 2.5GHz.

 

[sfx2000]

Sprint is ever the goof-ball. Smartphone makers for US customers won't want to spend much R&D on TD-LTE.

Maybe Sprint is again trying to recycle their ill-gotten MMDS spectrum in 2.5GHz.

Yeah... they've got an odd mix, that's for sure, but they're making headway - turning off iDEN, rolling out of Wimax and into LTE... and then the Vision buildout that is supposed to fix all that into a more unified whole...

 

[azazel1024]

It would be nice if Wimax was both open spectrum as well as built in to standard consumer radio stack. The option to have something VERY long range would be real nice, even if you have to deal with congestion in some areas.

Wifi is just fine and great a lot of the time, but either something higher power, or higher penetration would be nice sometimes.

That said, I do hold some hope that "white space" 802.11af (600MHz) or 802.11ah (900MHz) will come along at some point and might be standardized in handsets/laptops/tablets/etc.

Maybe/hopefully. The focus on more bandwidth I think is generally appropriate, but unlicensed operation that provides extended range is also extremely important. A lot of rural users are up a bit of a creek with regular wifi and af/ah can provide a significant boost to WISP operators, especially the smaller ones who can't afford proprietary 900MHz gear, let alone the ability to possibly operate in the 600MHz range (even if 802.11af only ends up being bridge to bridge or base station to base station for WISP operation, or for mobile vehicle connections or ship to shore connections).

 

[thiggins]

Price going up

eero Mesh Wireless Ending Pre-Order Deal

 

[stevech]

There is a "lightly licensed" WiMax form - TDD. Never caught on and no products now in No. America.

WiMax FDD is/was popular in developing nations in the middle east.

 

[Samir]

The best real consumer mesh died a long time ago when Meraki got rid of their cheap, but very reliable indoor APs. They were excellent for building true mesh wifi networks and pretty much worked once installed. The only time I visit the cloud-based interface is when something goes wrong, and that's really just to check which one went down.

Each AP had local configuration as well, but not for the mesh, which I think was architected via information from the APs in the cloud itself. Still, then handoff was just one ping, and most applications (if not all of them) pretty much never even knew about the handoff--it just worked.

We still have some Meraki indoor and outdoor APs in production even though they're EOL and not even able to be purchased anymore. Their new stuff is well above the $50, $100, and $200 costs of their legacy APs. Too bad too as these were great products.

 

[sfx2000]

I avoid such proprietary products. Beyond dependance upon their servers, if that small startup fails, and you are dependent on their proprietary networking, then when you need a replacement or addition, you are SOL.

That's why we need the IEEE to promulgate a mesh standard. Years go by and there is none in consumer-space - due to lack of need.

The serious meshes are from Tropos and Cisco, with backhaul on a proprietary mesh and user access on a different radio (usually) with vanilla 802.11/WiFi.

Mesh is standardized by IEEE 802.11s

Here's a good whitepaper on it.

http://www.cwnp.com/uploads/802-11s_mesh_networking_v1-0.pdf

sfx

 

[thiggins]

Discussion moved

The cloud discussion has been moved to this thread since it has expanded beyond eero.

 

[stevech]

Mesh is standardized by IEEE 802.11s

Here's a good whitepaper on it.

http://www.cwnp.com/uploads/802-11s_mesh_networking_v1-0.pdf

sfx

But the products being discussed don't claim compliance with IEEE. They seem to prefer proprietary methods.

 

[Samir]

But the products being discussed don't claim compliance with IEEE. They seem to prefer proprietary methods.

And if they're proprietary, they're just another Cisco, et al 'mesh'.

 

[stevech]

Yes. That's why one should avoid proprietary anything with small companies. And avoid if at all possible from Cisco/Juniper/Aruba and other larger ones.
It's a matter of risk.

 

[Samir]

Yes. That's why one should avoid proprietary anything with small companies. And avoid if at all possible from Cisco/Juniper/Aruba and other larger ones.
It's a matter of risk.

Proprietary definitely isn't the way to go, but sometimes it's worth the cost and risk. The Meraki solution I use is completely proprietary. So much so that the LAN ports on the APs can't even be used for regular ethernet traffic, but the system is super rock-solid and I wouldn't trade it unless I had to.

 

[stevech]

Cisco acquired Meraki 3 years ago, right?
Not always good though... Cisco has acquired many and they were stirred into and lost in the corporate soup. Like Clearwire.

 

[sfx2000]

Cisco acquired Meraki 3 years ago, right?
Not always good though... Cisco has acquired many and they were stirred into and lost in the corporate soup. Like Clearwire.

The Meraki stuff is there still, but Ci$co bumped up the price of admission...

BTW - clearwire is still around... much of their US stuff was consumed by Sprint as the Spectrum owner. Their pre-Wimax tech was consumed by Cisco from Moto if I recall, but that was in limited markets, and they moved over to 16e (Wimax) and trialed LTE-TDD stuff.

It's been a while since I've looked at Clearwire in detail, but they also have stuff in non-US markets...

 

[stevech]

Clearwire is the wrong name for the company acquired and dismantled by Cisco. My error. It was Clarity Wireless. I was involved with lab tests in that era of "Wireless DOCSIS" vs. OFDM; the latter won.

Here's an amazing list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_Systems