What is a Mesh Connectivity Layer?

A wireless mesh network is a mesh network formed by connecting wireless access points. Wireless access points are installed at network users.

A wireless mesh network is a mesh network formed by connecting wireless access points. Wireless access points are installed at network users.

Chinese name

Wireless mesh network

Foreign name

wireless mesh network

A wireless mesh network is a mesh network formed by connecting wireless access points. Wireless access points are installed at network users. Each network user is also a provider, forwarding data to the next node. Because each node only needs to transmit to the next node, the network infrastructure is decentralized and simplified. Wireless mesh networks enable people living in remote areas and small businesses in rural areas to connect their networks together, providing an affordable Internet connection.

Wireless Mesh Network Overview

Wireless mesh is a new type of public wireless local area network and metropolitan area network solution. Unlike traditional WLAN, it wirelessly transmits data to a wired broadband network, thereby greatly reducing the need for costly wired connections and reducing the complexity of network deployment. The topology of a wireless mesh network is arbitrary, just like a fishing net. There are many ways to go from one point to another. Because it is not wired but radio frequency transmission, it is called a wireless mesh network. The current wireless mesh network has technically gone through two generations. Large cities in some countries have long used this kind of network, such as Singapore and Philadelphia. Both use wireless networks. At present, China has begun to develop this technology. By then, every family will not have to pull the network cable, and they can directly access the Internet. There are also some wireless mesh network manufacturers in China that are promoting the development of wireless cities. It seems that Adria has been mentioning the concept of wireless cities and has done a lot of research and development.

The biggest advantage of this structure is that if the nearest AP is congested due to excessive traffic, the data can be automatically rerouted to a neighboring node with small traffic for transmission. By analogy, the data packet can continue to be routed to the next node closest to it for transmission according to the network conditions, until it reaches the final destination. This type of access is multi-hop access.

Wireless Mesh Network Basics

According to network expert John Shepler, in the near future, Wi-Fi cards on laptop computers may become access points in addition to serving as network clients. In a full mesh topology, each node communicates with all other nodes, not just the central router. Another variant of it, called a partial mesh network, where each node in the network communicates with all nodes in its vicinity and not with nodes that are far away from it. All communication takes place between the client and the access point server. Client-server relationships are the foundation of this technology.

Wireless mesh network implementation

In Redmond, Cambridge, and Silicon Valley, Microsoft is working on "self-organizing nearby wireless mesh networks." The network has a Mesh Connection Layer (MCL), which is a loadable Microsoft Windows driver that allows users to communicate through a wireless mesh network using Wi-Fi or WiMAX services. The driver makes the computer think that it is directly connected to the Internet. The software creates a virtual network adapter so that computers understand it as a normal network connection, and uses the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) protocol Link Quality Source Routing (LQSR) to send data between neighboring computers.

Advantages of wireless mesh networks

The potential advantages of wireless mesh networks include:

• Reduce the need for Internet gateways;

• Cooperative redundant backup technology to ensure data security in the event of a disk failure;

• The function of dynamically configuring routing;

• Low power requirements, which can be achieved by using low-cost or renewable energy sources;

• High reliability: Each node is connected to several other nodes. If one node fails, its neighboring nodes can easily find another route. ^[1]