Disruptive Technologies, Education and Some Social Issues » Meraki

Meraki was the coolest wireless mesh product I had seen, and I was promoting meraki till they changed their business models. Still meraki is the best product in the market but I dont use it anymore.

Ever since Meraki changed their prices and business models, I was looking for an alternative. There were many similar products, but the web dashboard and the zero configuration router were still not there.

Today I have found a product, that is open source and free and that matches merakis features. Its the Open-Mesh. They provide free centralized network management & reporting console for RO.B.IN and Meraki network. The stuff is very much similar to Merakis online dashboard.

The Open-Mesh supports Fon 2200 routers flashed with a custom firmware. The router costs only 40$. Now thats cheaper than Meraki which costs 49$ a piece. This is the best Ive seen so far and Ill be soon getting a few FON routers and restarting the mesh project I had started and then paused due to merakis change of business plans.Similar Posts:

PepWave – A Competitor to Meraki

Kenney Jacob — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:09:51 +0000

PepWave introduced its new PolePoint access point and its CMS (Central Management System). Now these two products looks almost similar to the meraki offering.
Even the installation procedure has been made really simple. They have a 3 step installation procedure.

Sign up for a free account at PePWave Central Management System (PCMS).
Create and apply configuration profiles to target PolePoint AP’s.
Power up the PolePoint devices, and plug them into an Internet connected network.

Now thats definitely a meraki competitor.

The prices are expected to be around 100$. So that beats meraki prices by 50$. So it looks like Ill have to spend another 400$ to test this stuff.Similar Posts:

Google Maps for the Technopark Mesh

Kenney Jacob — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 01:55:09 +0000

The building that you see is park center. The round thing in middle of the cross roads is the water tank.

The three green spots are the three routers. All the three and connected to each other, thats why there is a faded line between them. These three routers can provide high speed broadband wireless internet accessto the entire parkcenter and its surroundings.

The node numbered 3 is the Gateway. An airtel broadband is plugged into it. In large mesh networks we can plugin any number of gateways. The mesh algorithm will automatically calculate the path to the nearest gateway from any node and route the packets accordingly.Similar Posts:

Meraki Introduces New Plans

Kenney Jacob — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:16:49 +0000

Meraki website changed today. Now we have a new set of features, plans and editions to choose from. The business model of meraki is now getting more clear. Its a wonderful service they have anyways.

The following are the usage editions introduced.

Standard
Pro
Carrier

The standard edition is for home mesh users and community enthusiasts. The Pro edition is for small time bandwidth resellers and the carried edition is for existing wifi carriers/new ones who has serious business interests in the wifi business.

View the comparison chart here. http://meraki.com/oursolution/editions/comparison

I am a pakka meraki fan and I would like to meet the man behind, Sanjit Biswas one day.Similar Posts:

Meraki Mesh – Second Router

Kenney Jacob — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 04:26:16 +0000

This is the second router I setup on the Parkcenter lobby. I powered it and it formed the mesh instantly. My signal strength indicator bar shot up as soon as I powered it up. After 2 minutes it started appearing in my online dashboard also. This stuff inside parcenter lobby can give range upto Bhavani entrance.Similar Posts:

Meraki Mesh – Community Effort

Kenney Jacob — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 06:12:51 +0000

Open mesh networks should really be community efforts. Its really boring to climb buildings and setup routers if you are alone. Here the technopark security is helping me with the signal strength measurement. Time 2 Am in the morning.Similar Posts:

Meraki Mesh – My first Gateway

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:23:22 +0000

This is the gateway router. Its connected to my office internet connection. Surprisingly, It started working as soon as I plugged in the connection and turned it on. It was not connected to the internet connection directly. I connected it through a linksys router lan port. Still it had no issues connecting to the network.Similar Posts:

Meraki Mesh Routers – My first kit

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:19:31 +0000

The picture shows the 3 routers which I got from meraki. The devices are very small compared to normal access point and routers.

The Indian customs put a customs duty of 35% on the package, upon the 51$ which I already paid. In effect I ended up paying 85$ per router to get it to my office.

Now Im gonna setup a single router as gateways and get a meraki account to check out the features of the dashboard.Similar Posts:

Meraki – The Easiest Mesh Networking Platform

Kenney Jacob — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:38:39 +0000

Search for the ultimate mesh networking platform ends here. Meraki Networks, a company from the MIT, founded by Sanjit Biswas, John Bicket and Hans Robertson has the best solution for creating your own mesh network.

With Meraki repeaters, all you have got to do is power up a few of them and plug a broadband internet connection to one of them. The repeaters will configure itself provide the optimized access to all connected users.

The most beautiful part of their solution is the web based dash board they provide. Every meraki router connects and reports to their hosted backend. The network admin can monitor his network online. The web dashboard also allows you to limit access to the network, charge for the service and also set bandwidth limits.

Their product suite contains an indoor router that costs 49$ and an outdoor router that costs 99$. The web dashboard is free to use.

The beauty of their business idea lies in the fact that every router needs to communicate with their backend. Think about the implications of this -;)Similar Posts: