A networking mesh for the future

Imagine owning a plethora of smart devices such as Internet-of-things-enabled (IoT) fridges, microwaves, ACs, exer-cycles, security door locks, webcams, and so on. Many of us already live with some version of this. Your neighbours probably have similar smart device penetration. Many people also have some sort of wired broadband connection, as well as 4G smartphones or better.

What if those devices all talk to each other directly? This is a mesh network — a local network, where smart devices connect directly to each other. A mesh can ride on a combination of Bluetooth, conventional Wi-Fi, even 2G, landlines or fibre.

A mesh is very different from a “normal” hub-spoke network. In H&S, each smart device connects to a router — a hub that “controls” the conversations between spokes. There are several significant advantages to mesh topology compared to H&S.  

Mesh networks are self-discovering. If a new smart device is switched on, it can be automatically integrated as a node. They’re self-healing. If a node drops off, the mesh continues to function, with the remaining nodes still connected to each other and transmitting data. Meshes can be partial where each node connects to some other nodes but not to all nodes directly. There are also full meshes where each node connects directly to every other node.

Importantly, meshes function both at close range and over long distances to transmit data, without needing the internet. My laptop (node 1) can connect to my neighbour’s cellphone (node 2), which in turn connects to his neighbour’s car (node 3), which connects to a cellphone (node 4) 100 metres down the road.

Such “multi-hops” can transfer data long distances even without the Internet. This has proved very useful in disaster-recovery after hurricanes and earthquakes. Meshes consisting of Bluetooth-enabled phones have been used by activists in Hong Kong, Iran and Kashmir, to get data out from protest sites, even when the authorities have switched off the Net, or are monitoring it punitively.

In less extreme use cases, mesh is useful in classrooms where everybody can chat to each other without a dedicated Net connection. It is useful in physically challenging locales such as on a mountain top; the nearest mobile signal may be a long way downhill, but a mesh network can reach the top by using cellphones connected to each other. Experiments carrying mesh routers suspended from balloons have also successfully created networks in such situations.

Mesh router hardware isn’t particularly expensive and it’s likely to get exponentially cheaper as the usage becomes more ubiquitous. The software and the data-routing algorithms are also getting better.

So where’s the catch?  New tech always creates new issues for users, vendors and policy-makers to deal with. Privacy is one question mark. A mesh network presents new dimensions of security challenges. The current mesh networking protocols may have all sorts of holes leaking data.  Second, if my cellphone or my car uses my neighbour’s broadband connection, she may demand payment, or simply feel uncomfortable.

Third, there are potentially weird legal implications. In the pre-3G days, I lived in a Goan village where there was one Internet café with a wired connection used by many locals. One idiot regularly watched porn there, which meant the machines were malware-riddled, and the default browser webpage startling.  In a mesh, if one node is transmitting porn, or trading drugs, the other nodes are passing relevant data back and forth.

On June 8, Amazon’s Sidewalk initiative will create a gigantic mesh network by connecting up Echo speakers and Ring security cameras across the US. While this is a logical extension of high connectivity and high device penetration, Amazon has controversially made Sidewalk opt-in by default — users have to refuse to connect to be left out of the mesh. While the company promises data will be secure, this would be an acid test of that assurance on a vast scale. If it works, Amazon becomes a large ISP and the Sidewalk mesh could generate a wide range of new use-cases.