Hi Marlon, On 4/19/07, Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Welcome to the list! Thanks for joining us.
Happy to be here! I remember when John told me about starting WISPA years ago. Before that, I remember all of us at MVN toasting his first wireless link out of the back of his Jeep Cherokee using, what was it John, Broadcom gear? I'm proud to see how far the community has come.
I guess my biggest questions revolve around the "phone home" feature. What is that needed?
The Meraki Mini communicates with our backend servers to provide you the capability of managing a large network of Minis via a single interface. They also aggregate usage information to show you how your network is being used and by whom. More information about Dashboard, our web-hosted management interface, can be found at http://meraki.net/products/dashboard/. The Dashboard service is included for free with purchase of a Meraki Mini.
How can we assure our customers that no data mining etc. is taking place?
We adhere to our privacy policy and are upfront about any changes that are made to it. The policy can be found online at http://meraki.net/legal/privacy/.
What's the advantage to YOU guys with the phone home function? I'd think it could easily require significant bandwidth to support.
The bandwidth required for a single network is relatively low compared to actual use of the network. Our cost for this service requires us to manage a large number of connections, but we do so because each of our network operators enjoy using Dashboard and the public API to understand how their users are getting value by using their networks. One of our early network operators is Michael Burmeister-Brown. Mike runs NetEquality in Portland, OR, is a Meraki reseller, and even has an enhanced monitoring interface that runs on top of Dashboard. If you run a Meraki network, you can sign up for Mike's monitoring interface which in turn uses our public API. NetEquality is online at http://netequality.org/.
Do you guys automatically update the firmware on the units since you know which ones are online and what their job is?
Yes, we maintain the software on each unit. This happens without requiring your intervention.
Yeah, I'm paranoid. I'm an ISP, it's expected! SOMEONE has to protect my poor customers. hehehehe
Of course. We want to protect our customers as well, so it's in our best interest to be upfront about our practices and policies. An example of us providing that sort of transparency is by allowing anyone who purchases a Mini to log in via SSH (the serial number is the default root password) and install their own software on top of our firmware. You can even interact with what's already installed and configured to see for yourself how our system works. Regards, Chase -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
