As some of you may already be aware we have been working on what we call the Mesh Extender at the Serval Project.
The Mesh Extender is a combined battery powered embedded Linux router and UHF packet radio running the Serval Mesh software (which is all GPL, see
for the source).
It is intended for mobile and truly ad-hoc deployment where the end user just turns it on and uses it.
The idea is that it uses the UHF packet radio to mesh over greater distances than is possible with Wi-Fi, the trade-off being lower bandwidth.
While not a substitute for "real" networks, it is fully distributed and resilient, and has the potential to be a powerful backup communications capability for when the "real" networks are down, congested, or have never existed.
In general, we find that the UHF packet radio has a range of about 10x that of Wi-Fi when deployed indoors with omni-directional antennae. This means it has a range of about a block in a suburban or urban setting compared with Wi-Fi's range of about one house or apartment.
The necessity of a portable and trivial to deploy enabler of mesh communications, and the need for this to be completely open, has led us to the current point where we have setup a crowd funding campaign to develop this technology, taking it from the prototype stage and to develop an actual manufacturable product, and do further testing with our humanitarian partners.
This is the point that our campaign at
igg.me/at/speakfreely will take us to if fully funded.
But to realise the full potential of this we not only need to make an attractive manufacturable device, but also to improve the open-source firmware of the packet radios we are using to support true "ad-hoc packet radio" within the complex regulatory requirements of the ISM 915MHz band, in particular the need to frequency hop which presents interesting technical challenges for a fully distributed mesh that does not rely on GPS timing for synchronisation.
Achieving "ad-hoc packet radio" will require us to not only meet our current funding goal, but stretch it by a factor of two.
We are conscious that achieving this will require promoting the campaign far and wide, possibly wider than the Serval team can achieve alone.
Therefore it would be tremendously helpful if as many of you as are willing and able would assist us in spreading the word as far and wide as possible. We would love to get slash-dotted and reddited off the net. Repeatedly.
So please take a look at our campaign, use the words below if they are helpful, and help us to get the word out, and ultimately let's make effective and private long-range mesh communications not only possible, but practical and easy for the general public so that they can enjoy the resilient backup communications capability that they need to keep connected, no matter what disaster may befall them.
Obviously we also welcome any volunteer contributors on any aspect of the Serval Project as we work together to make mobile communications available when and wherever it is needed, so that people can speak freely, even during a disaster or in the middle of nowhere.
Thanks in advance,
Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen
Founder, Serval Project.
---
Serval crowd-funding Mesh Extenders to make mesh & disaster telephony go the next mile
http://igg.me/at/speakfreelyServal Project has been working for three years with New Zealand Red Cross on free and open technology, called the Serval Mesh, which can keep mobile phones operating when mobile networks fail, such as during disasters. We now want to take this technology out of the lab and get it into peoples hands. Find out more at
http://igg.me/at/speakfreelyTwitter: @ServalProject
Campaign:
http://igg.me/at/speakfreelyG+:
http://gplus.to/servalFacebook:
http://www.facebook.com/servalprojectweb:
http://servalproject.org