3G backhaul for mesh

[Paul Colmer]

Im currently about to deploy a mesh in an area that has 3G internet only, im looking at bonding / load balancing multiple connections. Im awear of devices such as Peplink and Mushroom networks have devices that can do this , im wondering who has been down this road before and  what solution was used to achieve this.

Any feedback would be apreciated

[DE 'Tad' Heckaman III]

I've done some research into both Peplink and Mushroom's devices, and both look fairly promising. However I've never been able to sell it to any of my clients, so I've never gotten to use one. The nice thing with the mushroom appliance is that if you pair 2 of them together (or pay for their hosted solution), all data transfers are spread across all the 3g cards (so 4x 1mbps 3g cards would give you 4mbps). Without the pairing/service, only http downloads are split across the 3g cards, everything else is just load balanced onto each individual card (ftp downloads would be capped to the speed of a single 3g card, and not the sum of all 3g cards, although you could have 4 ftp downloads and it should put each download on one of the 4 3g cards)

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 7:45 AM, Paul Colmer <pa...@paulcolmer.co.za> wrote:

Im currently about to deploy a mesh in an area that has 3G internet only, im looking at bonding / load balancing multiple connections. Im awear of devices such as Peplink and Mushroom networks have devices that can do this , im wondering who has been down this road before and  what solution was used to achieve this.

Any feedback would be apreciated

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Tad Heckaman

[Paul Colmer]

Thanx for the response, im also trying to think of a way to do this using 'Open Garden'  i believe this may be an option too 

[Charles Wyble]

Pfsense does a remarkable job of active/active interface bonding. Especially on 3/4g. Was quite happy with it for mesh backhaul.

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Charles Wyble
cha...@knownelement.com / 818 280 7059
CTO Free Network Foundation (www.thefnf.org)

[Song, Stephen]

Hi Charles,

I am currently experimenting with Pfsense on an Alix board (http://www.pcengines.ch/alix2d13.htm) and have been impressed so far.  For price vs. performance, it seems a pretty reasonable option as a gateway device.   Can I ask what sort of device you are using for Pfsense?

Cheers... Steve

Steve Song

+1 902 529 0046

http://manypossibilities.net
http://villagetelco.org

[Paul Gardner-Stephen]

Hello,

If you only want to bridge calls, we are working on a bit of a hack that lets you use a pair of old Android phone (or potentially an android phone and a mesh potato) to gate the audio between mesh and cellular networks via acoustic coupling of headsets, or for an extra couple of dollars electrically coupled via a custom double-ended headset lead.

See recent progress at:

http://servalpaul.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/interfacing-between-serval-mesh-and.html

We freely admit that it is not what you would call an "ideal" solution, but a number of people have been asking for it, and it does offer the potential to fairly cheaply and easily connect mesh and cellular networks, without the need for expensive cellular modems or any custom hardware.

Paul.

[DE 'Tad' Heckaman III]

PFSense is pretty nice... plus the main developers are located right here in Louisville, KY... a local OSS project. :)

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Tad Heckaman

[Charles Wyble]

I use an atom based foxcon barebones system as my home core router.

I use dell poweredge 2950 (in an active/passive ha pair) as the core routers for thefnf.org (The Free Network Foundation).

We use just about every feature and have been very pleased.

Sorry for the late response!