Just received my Meraki Mini Pro, and a Meraki High-Gain Omni-Directional Antenna for the outdoors one. They also included some stickers and a brochure (because I asked for something promo material).
Quick write-up. Playing around with the Pro dashboard. Main different feature is the user registration (and the possibility of billing, but I won’t be using that). It is disappointing that you can’t limit bandwidth/usage on a per user basis, I thought the usage configuration would be more elaborate. You can also disable the spashpage and the messaging toolbar, but I want to use both of them anyway. So, not sure if it’s worth the extra 100$, tripling the price of the Mini, or double the price of the Outdoors.
Now both the Outdoors and the Mini Pro are gateways. When I unplug the Mini Pro from my router, it automatically connects to the Outdoors, which is pretty cool (the meshing feature). But because that is a Standard version, the Mini becomes a Standard too (as expected).
I can now also see the other neigbor network through the dashboard, so when two Meraki networks are within each others reach, they can see each other, and connect to each other when one’s connection drops (as tested by unplugging). When connected to one, I can get the signal strength of the other through my.meraki.com, in dB. The Outdoors (euh, outdoors) with high-gain antenna gives me 58dB, the Mini indoors gives me 50dB.
Here is an interesting rundown on the history of Meraki and perceived negative changes that have been made to the original offering. Changes like forced advertising on the original price point while tripling the price to use the ‘Pro’ service allowing you to charge for access, most recently the right to flash other firmware onto Meraki hardware has been removed.
These changes have lead to splinter groups that are working hard (and successfully) to duplicate Meraki’s offering in an entirely open source solution. See http://www.open-mesh.com/ for one such group.
After just a few months, Meraki responded by updating their End User License Agreement [...] (which) allows the Meraki to
prevent any changes to the Meraki hardware or firmware (software) on
any new hardware purchases.[...] My ultimate goal is a completely open source solution for creating a Wireless Open Mesh Network by April 1st. Let’s work together to make that goal achievable everywhere!
Wednesday, Mar 5th, 2008 Categories: Meraki, Social
One webdesigners journey with his Merakis:
“Now I am not a radio-wireless geek so I am only guessing, but I would expect that in order for this to work, every 10th house in a street would need to share their paid internet connection, and every 5th house would need a repeater. Not a big ask, but it remains a challenge. I think it can be done, we just need to spread the word.”
“It’s time for a cheaper, free internet. And to adapt a phrase from the Treasurer of the last Federal Government: Get a Meraki for yourself, one for your husband and one for the country.”
Read more about the Pro edition dashboard at NetLife.
Sydney Morning Herald already picked up Meraki earlier in the year. But now they also pick up Free Sydney Wireless, and interviewed yours truly…
“Frustrated by the NSW Government’s stalled free wi-fi project, a group of Facebookers have decided to start their own.”
“Free Sydney Wireless’ next recruiting drive will be in March at Barcamp, an informal web developers’ get-together. “We will try to set up a wireless net at Barcamp using Merakis, in the hope that it spurs more people to install their own Meraki.”
If you want to get in touch, please register and leave a comment. Thanks!
If you’re interested in joining the fun (get a Meraki), head over to the Facebook group and look into the group buy post (but you do need a Facebook account - try to sort that out with an open forum or wiki soon).
What happens when a group of gadget loving web geeks get inspired? They start a quiet revolution in their backyard. That’s what happened after Mark Pesce’s “Mob rules” keynote presentation at Web Directions South late last year, where he described people as the network, and presented the little Meraki’s, allowing you to easily share your internet connection. These $US49 ($55) wireless devices offer the ability to create wi-fi mesh networks that link Meraki to Meraki (as a repeater) until the devices find a gateway with an internet connection. That’s what sets it apart from most other wireless routers. Meraki has its roots at MIT, and are as such the commercial implementation of the MIT Roofnet mesh routing protocol. They are cheap, offer reliable performance and are easy to use. They need very little end user configuration, which is handled through a back-end management/monitoring system hosted at Meraki.
Of course you could open up any regular wireless router too, but most of them miss the user management offered by Meraki. It provides basic system statistics, connected MAC addresses and computer names, and bandwidth usage. In its Standard edition it offers bandwidth throttling and you can block any abusive users. On the Pro edition you can set different tiers with different limits.
But why open your wireless network to begin with? Didn’t we all learn to use WEP at first (which was broken pretty quickly) and now WPA2? As security guru Bruce Schneier (CTO of BT Counterpane) wrote in the January edition of Wired, it’s basic politeness, it’s the neighbourly thing to do. In his “Steal This Wi-Fi / My Open Wireless Network” article he gives his thoughts on open and secured wi-fi and explains why his wireless network is open for everyone to use, and has since generated a lot of controversy. It comes down to the fact that your own pc needs to be secure to begin with. Of course the nay-sayers have valid points too, about leaching, illegal downloads, liability, and those are probably the biggest hurdles in setting up a community driven, free wireless network. Free for people to use occasionally, paid for by me, sharing my monthly bandwidth allowance.
But Meraki offers both options, so you have an open network section, and for yourself you can use the WPA2 enabled private section. It also has a feature to block all traffic going to the local LAN, to alleviate people’s concerns about “guests” being able to connect to the people’s private LANs.
In the end, Meraki’s are a means to an end. There are other options available (Fon, Open-Mesh), which miss some of Meraki’s features or are not mature enough. Meraki’s run on Linux and are pretty hackable (“We would like to encourage you to play with this platform and add your own features to it”). You can SSH into it and add iptables rules if required. And if you’re willing to void the warranty, you can replace it’s firmware with a more secure, more open version like ROBIN.
It’s early days. You don’t change things by doing nothing.
Saturday, Jan 12th, 2008 Categories: Media, Meraki
ZDNet Australia’s Jo Best asks herself “There’s no such thing as a free lunch, so the old adage goes — but is there such a thing as free Wi-Fi?”, comparing FON to Meraki:
Fon has a slightly different take. Like Meraki, it sells routers to encourage users to pass on their Wi-Fi, but there’s no mesh involved. Fon users — so-called Foneros — offer to make their Wi-Fi available to others. Passers-by in need of a hotspot can buy some time on Foneros’ connections much like they would in a Starbucks or an airport, albeit a bit cheaper. The Fonero and Fon itself then get to split the revenue between them.
Sydney Morning Herald journalist Nick Galvin peeps into the future and discusses ten things he thinks will change our future, including Mark Pesce’s Mob Rules, and Meraki:
“Put several Merakis together in a neighbourhood and they will instantly form a “mesh” network, giving internet access to anyone in the area. These ‘guerilla’ networks are beginning to spring up in cities around the world, driven by people for whom internet access is a social-equity issue.”
Saturday, Jan 5th, 2008 Categories: Meraki, Social
As the Google/Earthlink plan for a free ad-sponsored wifi network last year fell through in San Francisco, Meraki steps up its effort and is to expand its current network of 500 repeaters covering 40.000 users in a few neighborhoods, to a city-wide deployment of 15.000 devices, offering 1Mb/s speeds. As other US municipal wifi networks got canceled or postponed, San Francisco would be the showpiece for the company to use to attract business elsewhere. In the 500 days since Meraki got started, they are present in over 70 countries (including Australia of course).
“After a tough year for municipal wireless in which projects in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago were canceled or postponed, cities have been looking for alternatives, said wireless consultant Craig Settles of Oakland. The Meraki example in San Francisco could inspire communities to look at such a low-cost approach in lieu of larger, more expensive networks.“
You too can help SydneyFreeNet grow by putting a Meraki Mini in your front window, balcony or rooftop.
If you have a broadband Internet connection, you can share (part of) your bandwidth, by having your Meraki set up as a internet gateway. If you don’t have a broadband Internet connection, you can still help out by extending the network if you can see the SydneyFreeNet wireless network signal, by setting up your Meraki as a repeater.
If you already provide free wireless Internet (that’s great!), you are welcome to join SydneyFreeNet by adding Meraki Minis to your existing access point(s). By combining our efforts, you’ll become part of a larger wireless network, improve the quality of service for your visitors and be helping to build a unified and robust wireless network.
If you are a business or property owner (cafe, bakery, restaurant, bar, laundromat, hotel, apartment complex, conference center, etc.), you can attract new customers that stay longer by providing them free internet access.
You can get one or more Merakis from the Meraki website. We don’t sell them.
Again, we are not affiliated with Meraki, and we don’t make any money selling them. We just like their technology, which is cheap and easy to set up and manage.