Mesh network technology is originally a military technology. With the deep understanding of WLAN technologies such as 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g, how to break through the traditional "hotspot" structure of WLAN and provide a large area without money "hot zone" Grant caps and true smooth roaming capabilities? Wireless mesh access technology emerged as a new generation of wireless LAN technology. Mesh networks have gradually become the focus of attention in the business community and consumers.
A traditional wireless network must first access a centralized access point (AP) to make a wireless connection. In this way, even if two 802.11b nodes are next to each other, they must pass through the access point to communicate. In a wireless Mesh network, each node can communicate directly with one or more peer nodes.
What is a wireless mesh network?
A wireless mesh network (wireless mesh network) is also called a "multi-hop" network. It is a new type of wireless network technology that is completely different from traditional wireless networks.
In a traditional wireless local area network (WLAN), each client accesses the network through a wireless link connected to the AP. If users want to communicate with each other, they must first access a fixed access point (AP). This kind of network structure is called single-hop network. In a wireless mesh network, any wireless device node can act as both an AP and a router. Each node in the network can send and receive signals. Each node can communicate directly with one or more peer nodes.
The biggest benefit of this architecture is that if the most recent AP is congested due to excessive traffic, then the data can be automatically rerouted to a nearby node with less traffic. And so on, the data packet can also continue to be routed to the nearest next node for transmission according to the network conditions until reaching the final destination. This access method is multi-hop access.
Wireless Mesh Network is a new type of wireless network architecture. Its core guiding ideology is to allow every node in the network to send and receive signals. The traditional WLAN has always had many problems such as low scalability and poor robustness. Concluded, the emergence of wireless Mesh technology, represents a further leap in wireless network technology, has a very broad application prospects.
Wireless Mesh is a wireless area network solution that is well-suited for covering large open-area cities (both outdoors and indoors).
Wireless Mesh Network Features
It consists of a group of wireless APs that are distributed in a network. The APs are interconnected through wireless relay links in a peer-to-peer manner, extending the wireless "hotspots" in traditional WLANs into wireless "hotspots" that cover large areas.
Self-configured. APs in wireless mesh networks have automatic configuration and centralized management capabilities, simplifying network management and maintenance.
Self healing. APs in wireless mesh networks have white-active discovery and dynamic routing connections to eliminate the impact of single point of failure on services and provide redundant paths.
High bandwidth. Extend the "hot spot" coverage of traditional WLANs to a wider range of "hot zone" coverage, eliminating the original WLAN's reduced bandwidth as distance increases. In addition, with the Mesh architecture, signals can avoid obstacles and make signal transmission smooth and eliminate blind spots.
High utilization: High utilization is another technical advantage of Mesh networks. In a single-hop network, a fixed AP is shared by multiple devices. With the increase of network devices, the availability of the AP's communication network will be greatly reduced. In the Mesh network, since each node is an AP, no such problem occurs at all; once the availability of an AP decreases, the data automatically reselects an AP for transmission.
compatibility. Mesh uses a standard 802.11b/g system and is compatible with wireless client terminals.
In addition, wireless Mesh also offers better mobile roaming capabilities, as well as end-to-end secure connections and more.
Wi-Mesh Alliance
The Wi-Mesh Alliance consists of companies with the same philosophy and expects to adopt a set of wireless mesh area network standards so that wireless users can enjoy the convenience of seamless communication regardless of which manufacturer's products they use. The Wi-Mesh Alliance proposal is based on the research and development of the IEEE Standards Association guidelines, based on existing and future 802.11 communications protocols, and expands the reuse and compatibility of technologies.
Wi-Mesh Alliance members come from industry leaders in various fields, including Accton Technology, Nortel, ComNets, InterDigital, NextHop, Thomson, and others. They actively cooperated to promote the standardization of the global wireless mesh network (Mesh WLAN) to promote the interconnection between multiple wireless communication devices and services. Through extensive technical cooperation among partners, the Wi-Mesh Alliance has successfully presented the latest wireless mesh network area network proposal to the IEEE 802.11 task group (TGs) conference.
The purpose of the Wi-Mesh Alliance proposal is to expand the future high-output 802.11n specifications. This strategy will provide support for existing Wi-Fi network bases around the world, as well as expand the establishment of Wi-Fi networks in existing designated radio channels.
Recently, Nortel also announced the Mesh network architecture and announced that in the future it will integrate with traditional telecommunication networks to form complementary seamless roaming networks.
Five advantages of Mesh network
Compared with traditional WLANs, wireless Mesh networks have several unparalleled advantages:
(1) Rapid deployment and easy installation.
Installing the Mesh node is very simple. Take the device out of the box and connect it to the power supply. Users can easily add new nodes to expand wireless network coverage and network capacity. Mesh's design goal is to minimize the number of wired devices and wired APs, which greatly reduces the total cost of ownership and installation time, and the cost savings from this alone are very impressive. The configuration of wireless mesh networks and other network management functions are the same as those of traditional WLANs. The experience of users using WLANs can be easily applied to Mesh networks.
(2) NLOS.
The use of Wireless Mesh technology can be easily implemented NLOS configuration, so it has a wide range of applications in outdoor and public places. The user who has a direct line of sight with the transmitting station first receives the wireless signal, and then forwards the received signal to the user who is not directly at sight. In this way, the signal can automatically select the best path to constantly jump from one user to another and eventually reach the target user without direct line of sight. In this way, users with direct line-of-sight actually provide wireless broadband access to nearby users who have no direct line of sight. The ability of wireless mesh networks to transmit in non-line of sight greatly expands the application and coverage of wireless broadband.
(3) Robustness.
The usual way to achieve network robustness is to use multiple routers to transmit data. If a router fails, the information is transmitted by other routers through an alternate path. Mesh networks are more robust than single-hop networks because they do not rely on the performance of a single node. In a single-hop network, if one node fails, the entire network will collapse. In the mesh network structure, each node has one or more paths for transmitting data. If the most recent node fails or is disturbed, the data packet will be automatically routed to the standby path to continue transmission, and the entire network operation will not be affected.
(4) Flexible structure.
In a single-hop network, devices must share APs. If several devices are to access the network at the same time, communication congestion may occur and the speed of the system may be reduced. In a multi-hop network, the device can connect to the network through different nodes at the same time, so it will not lead to a decrease in system performance. Mesh networks also provide greater redundancy mechanisms and communication load balancing capabilities.
(5) High bandwidth.
The physical characteristics of wireless communication determine that the shorter the communication transmission distance, the easier it is to obtain high bandwidth, because with the increase of wireless transmission distance, various interferences and other factors that cause data loss increase. Therefore, choosing to transmit data through multiple short hops is an effective way to obtain higher network bandwidth. This is exactly the advantage of the Mesh network.
In a Mesh network, a node can not only transmit and receive information, but also act as a router to forward information to its neighbors. As more nodes are connected and the number of possible paths increases, the total bandwidth also increases greatly.
In addition, because each short hop has a short transmission distance, the power required to transmit data is also small. Since multi-hop networks generally use lower power to transmit data to adjacent nodes, the wireless signal interference between nodes is also smaller, the network channel quality and channel utilization efficiency are greatly improved, and thus higher network capacity can be achieved. For example, in a high-density urban network environment, a Mesh network can reduce the mutual interference between adjacent users using a wireless network, and greatly increase the channel utilization efficiency.
Insufficient Mesh network
Although wireless mesh networking technology has a wide range of application prospects, there are also some issues that affect its widespread deployment.
(1) Interoperability.
An important obstacle that affects the rapid adoption of wireless mesh technology is interoperability. Wireless Mesh networks do not yet have a unified technical standard. Users now have to use only one vendor's wireless mesh products or face different ways. The problem of the type of embedded wireless device interface, this issue is currently the most important reason for the promotion of the use of wireless Mesh technology. To completely solve the interoperability issues, the industry eventually needs to develop a unified wireless mesh technology standard.
(2) Communication delay.
Since data is transmitted through intermediate nodes in a Mesh network for multi-hop forwarding, each hop will bring at least some delay. As the size of the wireless mesh network increases, the more jumps, the greater the total delay accumulated. Some applications that require high communication delays, such as voice or streaming media applications, may face unacceptably long delays. The current solution to this problem is mainly through the addition of Mesh nodes and appropriate network protocols.
(3) Security.
Compared with the single-hop mechanism of the WLAN, the multi-hop mechanism of the wireless mesh network determines that the user communication passes through more nodes. The more nodes that data communication goes through, the more the security issues become more and more important. The Internet itself is a typical example of communication using Mesh. Its security risks are well known. Although various end-to-end security technologies used in wired networks, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), can also be used to solve wireless mesh security problems. But just like the Internet, the security of wireless mesh networks is a problem that cannot be ignored.
Application of Mesh Network
In essence, a Mesh network is a point-to-point wireless network architecture that can significantly reduce the network infrastructure costs (eg, APs, number of wireless routers), and can also be a wireless network service provider (WISP). Reduce operating and installation costs by 70% to 75%.
Based on the advantages of Mesh network, it can also provide multiple services in different heterogeneous environments; when users move at high speed, or in a wider area, they can transmit voice and data via 3G or 2.5G; In the range, broadband network services such as video on demand can be provided via WLAN. With the further development of the Mesh network, it can eventually integrate office phones or mobile phones in the corporate office environment.
Mesh networks have broad application prospects in homes, businesses and public places.
1. family
An important use of Mesh technology is to establish a home wireless network. Home-based wireless mesh networking can connect desktop PCs, notebooks and handheld computers, HDTVs, DVD players, game consoles, and a variety of other consumer electronic devices without requiring complex wiring and installation procedures. In the home Mesh network, various household appliances are both online users and also provide access to other devices as part of the network infrastructure. When the number of home appliances increases, this networking mode can provide more capacity and greater coverage. Another key benefit of the Mesh technology application in the home environment is its ability to support highly centralized applications such as high-definition video.
2. enterprise
At present, most of the wireless communication systems of enterprises adopt traditional cellular phone-type wireless links to provide users with point-to-point and point-to-multipoint transmission. Wireless Mesh networks are different. They allow network users to share bandwidth, eliminate bottlenecks in current single-hop networks, and enable dynamic load balancing of networks. Adding or adjusting APs in wireless mesh networks is also easier than wired APs, more flexible in configuration, and less costly to install and use. Especially for those enterprises that need to frequently move access points, the multi-hop structure and configuration flexibility of wireless mesh technology will greatly facilitate the adjustment and upgrade of the network topology.
3. SCHOOL
Campus wireless networks are very similar to large enterprises, but they also have their own different characteristics. First, the scale of campus WLANs is huge, not only because of the large geographic area and users, but also because of the large amount of communications. Students use more multimedia than general corporate users. Second, the requirements for network coverage are high, and the network must be able to achieve indoor, Seamless roaming between outdoor, auditoriums, dormitories, libraries, and public places; Third, load balancing is very important. Because students often need to concentrate on activities, students may experience communication congestion when they use the network at a certain location.
The traditional approach to solving these problems is to install APs indoors in high density, and there are few APs installed outdoors. However, due to the large changes in the user requirements of the campus network, it may be necessary to add new APs or adjust the deployment location of the APs, which will bring about a large increase in costs. Using Mesh mode networking not only facilitates network upgrades and adjustments, but also enables seamless roaming between outdoor and indoor environments.
4. hospital
Mesh also provides an ideal networking solution for public places like hospitals. Due to the dense and complex structure of hospital buildings, some areas also need to prevent electromagnetic radiation, so it is one of the most difficult areas for installing wireless networks. The hospital's network has two main characteristics. First, the wiring is more difficult: In the traditional networking mode, it is necessary to drill holes through the walls of the building, which is obviously not conducive to changes in the network topology. The second is that the robustness of the network is very high:
If there are important activities (such as surgery) in the hospital, any possible failure of the network will have catastrophic consequences.
Adopting wireless mesh networking is an ideal solution to these problems. If you want to adjust the wireless network topology of a hospital, you only need to move the location of an existing mesh node or install a new mesh node. The process is very simple, and installing a new mesh node is also very convenient. The robustness and high bandwidth of Wireless Mesh also make it more suitable for deployment in hospitals.
5. Tourist leisure
Mesh is ideal for places where remote locations are difficult or economically uneconomical to provide, but where users need broadband wireless Internet access, such as travel venues, resorts, and motels. Mesh can provide broadband services to these locations at the lowest cost.
6. Rapid deployment and temporary installation
For those places that need rapid deployment or temporary installation, such as exhibitions, trade fairs, disaster relief, etc., Mesh network is undoubtedly the most cost-effective networking method. For example, if you need to temporarily hold a few days or a few days in an exhibition, using Mesh technology to network can minimize the cost.
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