I think the point here is that GreenPacket sells a _multi-hop_ solution for ad hoc networking. The ad hoc mode that is specified by the IEEE 802.11 standard is merely mac-level, which means that whoever you want to talk to has to be within your radio range. That said, multihop ad hoc routing is clearly not unique in any sense of the word. Ad hoc routing has been studied extensively in academia and is one of the hottest research topics in networking at the moment.
http://www.packethop.com http://www.meshnetworks.com
are other examples of companies that try to make a living out of ad hoc and mesh networking. I think GreenPacket's approach is refreshing, in that they focus on end-users rather than large organizations. In my mind, that's a very attractive future direction for networking in general.
Jakob Eriksson
Computer Science Ph.D. Student @ University of California, Riverside
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Dynamic Address RouTing - for Scalable Ad Hoc and Mesh Networks
For papers and more, go to http://dart.cs.ucr.edu
On Thursday, November 13, 2003, at 07:22 AM, ericblack wrote:
Aaron-san:
If this is a "unique wireless networking solution," then I have a couple of
towers in Kuala Lumpur that I can sell you.
Interested? It's such a TRUE deal.
Seriously, I've only setup a wireless mesh/ad-hoc a couple times, but they
have been no big deal. All one has to do is set the ethernet settings of
the various computer-wireless-cards' to each have the same network address,
but a different host address. If you know how to set-up an ethernet network
without using a DHCP, then you can set-up a wireless mesh/ad-hoc network
with your existing 802.11b/g(a) hardware.
The wording "true ad-hoc network" makes it sound like these guys possess
somekind of ultimate networking truth. Freaky.
You never know. Maybe the GREEN Packet software is on the up-and-up and its
company is, alas, burdoned with some have-crazed, overzealous marketeers
leftover from the world's dot-com mass hysteria. Anyway, the wording of
this press release and the fact that the mesh/ad-hoc network structure is
already built into the 802.11b/g(a) hardware makes me very suspicious of
what SONbuddy's value-added, if any, might be.
eB
