idk much at all about networking (beyond a home network) but if someone wants to begin building an alt-net I’d be willing to contribute a rasberry pi to the cause and leave it running 24/7.
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JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 16 hours agoI agree, that would be amazing. I also hope it will help with some truly local community building (no troll farms from halfway across the planet spamming shit). Weather stations are already possible with sensor nodes, and most big repeaters have weather data. Though not like weather forecasts or anything.
The main issue would probably just be congestion, not even bandwidth. Once it’s used a lot, some packets will just be dropped due to congestion and you don’t get a reply at all.
A bit less of a problem with meshcore, with meshtastic in densely populated areas most users still don’t set their devices to client_mute, causing unnecessary rebroadcasts and even more congestion. Though with enough adoptions maybe governments might lower their restrictions on duty cycle, allowing for more traffic.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
wouldn’t the more users also mean more nodes? making the system scalable? as with more users, the network gets more robust?
JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 13 hours ago
I’m definitely not an expert radio operator or anything, but this is how I understood it.
With Meshtastic, no, it actually gets worse beyond a certain point, especially in dense areas. Each radio rebroadcasts messages, so more message fill the air, causing more congestion. setting devices to client_mute (no rebroadcasting of messages) alleviates this to some extent, but most people don’t do that. In general, a few well placed nodes are better than a lot of clients.
Meshcore with dedicated Repeater nodes alleviates that a bit, as a node is either a client that can originate messages, or a Repeater that can only rebroadcast. And it has a bit better routing protocol, reducing unnecessary duplicates in some cases.
The radio band is license free in many countries, but there’s still some restriction, e.g. 10% duty cycle in my country, which means no radio can be sending more than 10% of the time (so 1 minute in every 10 minute window). That combined with (afaik) nodes only being able so send one message at a time limits how many messages can be in flight at an instant. And more clients increases background chatter from e.g. node announcements and duplicates, leading to further congestion. And in meshtastic, since packets “flood” out in all directions, and each node rebroadcasts again, and it’s not directional, all the packets travel all over the place when you send a message. You could have a packet traveling in circles between new nodes for a long time.
E.g. in my region, originally the default for meshtastic was 7 hops on long range fast preset. That led to congestion so they switched to medium range fast, then recommended limiting hops to 5, and now ideally to 3, just so there’s less chatter and less utilisation of the channel. 3 hops is barely enough for me to get out of the city I live in. Meshcore also does floods, but also can keep track of paths so you can have a relayed connection along a specific path that does not flood out in all directions, along with putting up repeaters being a conscious and strategic choice by users, so you get something more like a dedicated highway of repeaters that are placed high up and can relay messages much better than some client down at street level could. And the hop limit is more like 64 (I think it can be higher but that’s what is set somewhere in the firmware). And repeaters are stationary, so they don’t need to announce themselves to the network that often (e.g. every 3 hours in meshtastic vs every 24-48 hours in mesh core). All of that means less channel utilization and longer reach.
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
so it’s possible but it needs networks to be optimised.
JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 12 hours ago
Yes. And that requires the participants to self-regulate and be educated, at least beyond a certain number of participants (and this number is more in the 100’s than 1000’s of devices in a city size area).
In case anyone is interested, in meshtastic, for a regular handheld device, set it to
clientif in a less populated area,client_mutein densely populated areas.router/repeateronly for really well positioned nodes (think top of a mountain, NOT top of a tall building),router_latefor ok positioned nodes where there’s other, better router nodes around, but they can cover some dead zone that the better router ones don’t cover. And then there’s other likeclient_basefor e.g. a rooftop node to help handheld devices inside the house reach outside. And follow the guidelines of your local area group/forum/whatever on number of hops, band to use etc.None of that is really complicated, but a lot of users will just buy a device, turn it on excitedly with default settings, see that messaging works and not dig deeper, and then worsen then network for everyone.
With meshcore, there’s a repeater firmware and a client firmware, it’s not just a setting that can be selected in the app. Default is client, and switching to repeater mean reflashing the firmware. And more clients don’t really matter for the network, since they don’t repeat. So much less risk of an unwitting user worsening the network.
And if anyone wants to play with this, all the devices should support both meshtastic and meshcore firmware, so you can play with both and see which you prefer.
Cataphract@lemmy.ml 13 hours ago
Imagine local libraries and post offices pushing this technology to get around ISP’s grips on local infrastructure. Helps during emergency events, local organization, and could even put e-books available from the library. Post office’s make sense because of their rural locations extending the nodes and brings them into the 21st century delivering physical and digital mail.