Mesh Nets To Become "Mainstream" Says Motorola

LONDON — The 802.11s mesh networking standard being readied by an IEEE working group could be approved by early next year, according to a senior executive at Motorola’s Mesh Networking Group.

And the compnay is already pushing its MeshConnex networking technology as an 802.11s compliant solution.

Joe Hamilla, vice president of technology at Motorola’s Mesh Networking Group told EE Times : “Our products will certainly be compliant and support the final 802.11s meshing standard. Mesh Networks, which Motorola acquired in late 2004, provided much of the technology that is now in the emerging standard.”

He said because of the flexible architecture of the MeshConnex technology, which already powers many of the company’s products, including the MotoMesh multi-radio broadband gear, users will be able to configure such equipment via over-the-air software downloads to ensure compliance.

Hamilla said the 802.11s proposals have now been approved by the task force and are now open for comments. “The process is ahead of schedule and should be completed within a year.”Unlike some other 802.11 procedures, standard ratification for a mesh technology has been relatively untroubled. Two camps had emerged with alternate proposals — one supported by the Wi-Mesh Alliance and backed by companies such as Nortel, the other dubbed the SEEMesh Alliance, with backing from Motorola, Intel, Nokia and Texas Instruments — but these have now been merged into a common specification.

When Wi-Fi hot spots are "meshed," they turn into a powerful, interconnected network that can blanket a campus, downtown or entire city with wireless broadband access. Mesh-enabled access points not only deliver Wi-Fi to users, they also act as router/repeaters for other access points in the network. The result is a self-forming, self-healing wireless broadband cloud that reduces the cost of backhaul, deployment and system engineering.

“With the standard will come ubiquity for the mesh networking concept, and we anticipate a major build up in demand next year. It will become mainstream in the near future,” said Hamilla.

In addition to established networking companies such as Motorola and Nortel, several smaller and startup compnaies are shipping products and readying 802.11s compliant systems, including Strix Systems, Sky Pilot, PacketHop and Tropos Networks.

Applications for mesh products based on the standard will include everything from municipal Wi-Fi clouds to self-configuring wireless home entertainment and computer networks.0