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throwing this in

zee_oh_six@... 9th Feb 2008

I was looking for a wireless repeater and came across this interesting debate and did some research.

From wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_ad-hoc_network
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network

Seems there is 3 ways to use the OLPC network:
-access point for internet
-school mesh seems like a WLAN intranet
-simple mesh WLAN

School and simple don't require connecting to the internet. For us, a WLAN w/o internet might be lame, but for them...jeez, i don't think they even have phones.

According to the integrated peripherals
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml
"supports diversity reception; capable of mesh operation when CPU is powered down;"

OLPC claims 2-3 times the range of regular laptops.
This guy seems to be doing various tests
http://dev.laptop.org/~quozl/
2006-12-12: AP to OLPC, 200m?
radio range test: between two OLPC, connect at 1.3 km?
also tried a 6 km test but failed "possibly due to fresnel effect and terrain obstruction, or due to excessive 2.4GHz noise from nearby cities"

This review
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140931-page,1/article.html
mentions that "Using the XO even on a broadband wireless network is as slow as thawing ice outdoors in a Boston winter".
It seems it was tweaked for range and handling traffic at the cost of speed to create a better mesh network. No sense in having it fast if you it's out of range.

So the repeater I am checking out is the Meraki Mini.
They made a successful mesh network in San Francisco. Some also worked on the OLPC. They also have a solar-powered repeater.
I forgot the reason why but you cannot have a lot of repeaters in one area. it was a reason why you don't see them around but Meraki has a system where you need to register the location so they know where they all are.