"Mesh" Dreams = OLSR

[Reuben K. Caron]

On Aug 24, 2010, at 10:26 AM, Chris Ball wrote:
>
> The fact that a custom mesh algorithm would have to run on the CPU --
> prohibiting any kind of idle-suspend -- makes it a non-starter for an
> XO deployment in my eyes.  Did you have any thoughts on this?
>

Hi Chris,

Great point. Thank you for bringing this up. I have given this some  
thought; though I'm curious to know if this is your only objection to  
the suggestion? I find it interesting that what you consider a non- 
starter, I consider a feature. I have often considered it a bit  
presumptuous for us to deplete one child's precious power resources to  
maintain the mesh network for other children. We have created a model  
where in essence one household is funding access to the Internet in  
another household through power costs. My thoughts are: we don't do  
this. If the XO wants to go into idle-suspend let it. The connecting  
XO will have to find another path or lose access to the Internet.  
Either way it is a better solution then what we have now. If children  
group together and knowingly disable idle-suspend so they can maintain  
a mesh network for their neighbors then that is fine and a great  
example of building community but doing so as a mandatory  
implementation IMHO and with all due respect is questionable.

Some things I'd like to point out.

-8.2.1 has idle-suspend disabled by default and we are considering  
disabling by default idle-suspend for new XO - 1 builds. In these  
cases OLSR would be performing fine.
-The switch in WLAN chip from XO 1.0 to 1.5 forces us to re-think how  
we do connectivity.
-The thin-firmware being built for XO 1.5 has the same CPU-prohibiting  
idle-suspend limitation and *does not* include a user base and support  
community of thousands of users and active development. Yet it relies  
on one closed source firmware developed by one firm based on the same  
"mesh" technology developed 3 years ago. It also lacks my hardware  
agnostic points.
-On the XO 1.5 builds where idle-suspend is working (CONGRATULATIONS  
TEAM), I'd recommend letting it idle-suspend. Yes, it will create  
route-flapping but in the school scenarios there should be enough  
paths to maintain connectivity and in the household environment any  
bit more of connectivity is better then none. It also leaves children  
and families the ability to knowingly disable-idle suspend and provide  
a resource to their neighbors.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Reuben




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