Finding viable mesh products is currently very elusive. Much like fuel cells, the technology is always just around the corner. While mesh is very promising there are still very real technology issues that exist. When looking at vendors and products it is important to ask the right questions and of course understand the obstacles experienced in pilots or actual implementations. Once you have these questions answered you will know whether, for your needs, mesh is currently a pie in the sky or is a technology at the brink of taking off.

Mesh Attributes

• Communication Performance
  • Distance, channel hopping, data rate, number of nodes, etc
  • Effects of metal, temperature, speed, etc
  • What kind of device to device communication range can we anticipate and total network range?
  • Supports how many nodes?
  • How often does the signal recalibrate? (so unaffected by other radio signals or WiFi networks)
  • What is the KB/s?
  • Can remotely flush software updates?
• Battery Life
  • How does this affect network topology, sleep interval, etc
  • How implementing least cost routing (thru the mesh network)
• Standards / Interoperability
  • Many providers are building proprietary implementations on top of 802.15.4
  • In the near future can we expect interoperability with any existing standard, such as
    • 802.11
    • ISO 24730
    • e-Seal standard (ISO 18185)
    • Or any other?
• Spectrum
  • 2.4 - 2.48 GHz appears to be the preferred spectrum, but some vendors appear to be migrating to 5 GHz
• Security
  • How could we allow partner’s mesh devices onto a secure mesh network?
  • How is security implemented: MAC level, Access control lists, encryption, etc?
• Costs
• Implementations / Pilots
  • Are there any implementations that you can reference?
• Mesh Roadmap
  • Where do expect mesh technology to be in two years, from a price, feature, and performance perspective?
• What other questions should we be asking?