[olpc-community-support] Mesh Network Identity

[mburns]

numbers 1, 6 and 11 are the unique channels for wireless (802.11b/g) computers. Because it is a mesh, all connected laptops are able to talk with eachother, via eachother. This message passing requires they all be able to talk to eachother, so they must be on the same channel.

You could have a mesh network of 10 olpc laptops on channel 1, and an entirely separate mesh network of 5 other laptops on channel 6. This will let us scale to densely populated schools more easily.

The benefits of connecting to a mesh are collaborative features in the software. Channels 1,6 and 11 are are local to your wireless, so unless you know of another OLPC on the block, you are able to ignore (or arbitrarily connect to) any of them.