As I mentioned in my earlier post that we can enable our car WiFi by 2 means.

(i) Using Laptop as and enabler to internet connection.

(ii) Using Single board computer in place of Laptop as internet connection enabler.

The main advantage by using Laptop is we can even avoid router(Access Point) by configuring the machine to a point to point wifi access. The disadvantage is we need to carry laptop every time for internet connection.

The advantage of using SBC in place of laptop rule out the disadvantage of (i). We need to buy an SBC to make car wifi enabled which cost around $120.

I am mentioning simple and easiest method that is method (i) now. For this we need to configure our laptop for point to point wifi access. The main advantage of using method (i) is we can avoid access point(AP).

The figure above shows the architecture diagram of our simplest wifi car. The EVDO is connected to the first wireless laptop which will serves internet to other system(s) using point to point network. I will explain the step to step procedure now.

Click on the Network connection in control panel(Start menu->Control Panel->Network and Internet Connections->Network connections).

On the properties window click on the wireless network tab and Add a new connection.

Add a name for the network let it be “MyHomeNetwork” and make the authentication as shown in the figure above. You can add a password which can be used to secure your network. The main and ultimate thing is that you need to change your wireless network as adhoc(point to point) network by checking the check box shown in figure above. Click OK to save the settings. Yeah your system is ready to work as point to point wireless serving device and also a gateway for internet. Connect EVDO driver program to get internet connection.

Carry the system you configured now for getting internet connection in your car.

Your Peer system(s) can be connect to this network. Search for wireless network you can see a wireless network named “MyHomeNetwork”. Connect to the network with key assigned during the process.

My next post will describe the way to make your car wifi using Single board computer. Which is more promising WiFi car.

When we develop something our own we may experience some technology issues. There are couple of technology issues with Wifi car. I will explain the hurdles below and I will suggest the solution or workaround.

The main hurdles we faced is stable electric supply to drive SBC, wifi router. Most of the Car have 12V DC output from the battery and associated dianomo. We need 20V DC with 3.5A rating and 12V with 1A rating. So we need to design some adapter to cope this. Some adapters are available online we can also buy the same. But we need to make sure that the adapter is stable one. By the time we are using a costume designed power supply for this.

Apart from the electric supply we faced another major issue. As we are using BSNL EVDO for internet connection we need the dialing driver and its stack for connecting the internet. We can’t directly use Wifi router with EVDO cards. Moreover EVDO cards can be connected to USB only. We are using a laptop to install and dial EVDO now. But we need to carry laptop every time for connecting internet, we need to avoid this bottleneck. Single board computer is a solution for this. We can install a linux operating system in a single board computer and we can plug the EVDO card in the USB available in single board computer. By using a single board computer we can reduce the power rating too. For a device from compulab (check the link above) the power rating is 3.3V and around 1A current. This device will also support operating systems like Embedded Windows XP and linux kernels. The device cost around $140, which is promising we can also use the same device as music player too.

In the coming days we will explain the procedure for installing each and every components described above. Coming post’s contain somesort of technology configurations. Don’t be baulked to ask your queries and doubts. Don’t miss any of the post in the series, you may get confused if you miss some.

Iamatechie always believes in wireless enabled innovative ideas and its experimentations. We proudly announce “how to make your car WiFi enabled with an internet connection so that you can access internet whereever you go“. We are starting the post series which describes and demonstrate how we changed our Chevrolet Optra to WiFi enabled car.

Initially we started experimenting with a GSM/GPRS card and phone for internet connection from AIRTEL, which was pretty slow. But we moved to a 2Mbps EVDO BSNL connection now which is also cheaper wireless connection available in India for an amount 550INR monthly rental.

We are now experimenting with a laptop and linksys router (wireless access to nearby devices). But we are planning to do with single board computer instead of laptop so that we can avert plug and play procedure for internet connection every time.  Now a days size of the single board computer is very less. Even the single board computer available within the size of a thumb drive .

I guess all of my readers will participate for this experiment so that within couple of days we can bring our car Wifi enabled. Don’t miss the opportunity to participate for this experiment. Enjoy reading !!!

This is gonna an important topic What VOIP can do with WiFi mesh? I can say this is the topic which might be useful for saving your expense in local calls. If your city is already WiFi enabled just think of the situation where you don’t need to pay phone bills for local calls? I know you will be interested. If your city is WiFi enabled this dream can be setup without enough cost. But this is heavily dependent on your network. There are couple of requirements that need to be satisfied.

1) WiFi mesh
2) SIP server
3) SIP clients

Another main requirement is your bandwidth and its reliability. Make your WiFi mesh reliable for voice handling. Any packet loss in voice handling may disrupt its quality of service(QoS). Another major factor is its latency. IPERF is a measurement tool to find the QoS. This tool measures mainly node to node throughput, latencies, jitter, packet loss etc. If the QoS achieves certain level, we can deploy Voice solution with the existing WiFi mesh network. SIP server may be open source asterisk solutions or some Hardware capable to accept SIP protocols.

Now a days high end phones are equipped with WiFi chip. So we can install a SIP based application and use it in the existing mesh network for local voice call. I am planning to setup a asterisk based solution in one of our mesh network for testing purpose so that I can analyze the reliability.

The image shows the mesh layout on a google map. The nodes are numbered from 1 to 3. Node 3, which is in green color is powered up right now and the other two nodes are not powered. The nodes are setup in an apartment complex and provides wifi to 15 homes.

This shows the usage pattern and nodes that had problems in the recent past. 2 Nodes listed there were not powered and is marked in red to mean that they need attention.

Shows the network diagram and how the nodes are connected.

Shows the list of users who have connected to the mesh recently.

Iamatechie interviewed the open-mesh firmware developer Antonio Anselmi. We are publishing the summary to our readers.

1. What is your education/work Background?
I’m an IT Engineer and work as freelance System & Network admin, mainly on TCP/IP Linux platforms.

2. What is your role in the open-mesh project?
I’m the maintainer of the firmware

3. Can you say a few words about the team behind open-mesh?
We are a few team composed by people all around the world, other than me there are:
- Mike Burmensteir (from open-mesh.com) and Shaddi Hasan (from UNC Chapel Hil) working at Dashboard and at Orange Dashboard
- Marshal Dias (wifiCPA.com) is involved in the porting of coova-chilli
- Joe Bowser (VONI Vancouver) who merged his ruby-dashborad and wifidog captive portal solution
- Aaron Kaplan (OLSR team) is working to port OLSR into robin

4. What are your views on other mesh products like Meraki and MeshCom?
Currently Meraki has the best play in town: it’s a robust company with important collaborations with google, but we hope to grow in a few months. Meraki recently changed their politics with customers and “closed”
their device (look at their license agreement) so folk is very excited on our. Really don’t know MeshCom, I’m sorry.

5. If there was no open-mesh project, then what else would you be working on now?
IT stuff such as consulting, administration and so on…

6. What are the future plans for open-mesh?
Just in these days two big customers from Canada and UK have in plan to roll-out 10K nodes in this summer so our big goal is a stable release (beta-1.2) at the end of June: we all are working towards this direction.

We have solid contacts with Accton and this will allow us to have a better hardware (such as second integrated antenna, POE, GPS, Acton drivers,… ) in a month or two. We collaborate with Ubiquiti Networks too in order to release a pico-station with robin pre-flashed at the beginning of the summer (I’m waiting some samples from Ubiuiti to start tests).
About firmware we stay currently on top of Openwrt kamikaze 7.09 but other features are in plan according to new hardware (GPS first) and users requests… we are open!

Thanks

Antonio

Before discussing in detail about Meraki and Meshcom, lets discuss about Open-Mesh. Its truly poor man’s wifi mesh networking product. As written on their site, the product is ideal for school/office campuses, hotels, apartments and towns. My first Open-Mesh network is successfully running in Chennai serving more than 10 users in an apartment complex.

The product comes with hardware routers and a hosted online interface to manage it. Routers cost 49$ a piece and if you buy 20 pieces together you will get it for 799$. The routers are very small with the size of a toilet soap.

The hosted dashboard is very simple to use and any one can create and deploy a network without anyone’s help. To add a node to a network, all that is required to do is to punch in its MAC id into the hosted admin interface. The system will find the router, next time its powered.

One major feature of open-mesh is that, it supports multiple internet gateways. When you have a mesh containing 20+ routers, you will definitely need to have multiple gateways on your network. This is to act as a fail safe arrangement and also for bandwidth distribution.

The post series we are writing here is the resultant of wifi mesh network installations happening at Saidapet, Srinagar colony, Chennai. The mesh networks at Chennai is now up and running. We started load testing in the network and we will apply enhancements to the networks soon to boost signal strength and manage traffic.

The mesh products that I am planning to test out are

• Meraki
• Meshcom
• Open-Mesh

Meraki is a nice product and from my previous experiences with it, it has performed well. I myself have a meraki mesh running at my home. But their product is good only for the basic version. The version with more features are costly and their business plans are really sucks.

Meshcom provides firmwares for router manufacturers and operates in a different fashion compared to other mesh router companies. They are strong business wise and has got many tie ups in place. A few months back they had a windows mesh driver available on their site for free download. But now its not there. Now I am being asked to fill in a form. Anyways Ill look at it later.

Open-mesh is the Meraki killer. It offers as many features as the Meraki with a lesser cost. If meraki is windows, open-mesh is linux. Meraki kind of cheated its fans. I was a hard core meraki fan. But now Im an open-mesh fan. The hosted interface for configuring open-mesh routers is really good and more and more features are being added daily.

I Am a Techie is happy to announce a post series on Wifi Mesh Networking. In the coming weeks we will be testing some of the major mesh firmwares and supporting software’s.

Wifi mesh networks consists of a collection of wireless routers which work together to provide wireless access to client devices. The mesh routers route packets from one router to another in order to reach destination. One of the major factor that helps us classify the routers available is the algorithm used for routing. Here is a simple wifi mesh network diagram.

Mainly two firmware are popular for mesh networking, meraki, and open mesh of which open mesh is best suitable for the time being mainly because of its cost.

By making an area wifi enabled will make you even call within the network free of cost using VOIP.

Subscribe to the RSS feed and wait while we uncover the mesh secrets.

New duty for t-shirts?

Interestingly another job for t-shirts, detect wifi strength around you, its an anomaly. But this is true, it will show the wifi signal strength to you and people around you.

The glowing bars on the t-shirt will display the signal strength. So we don’t need to carry a laptop for wardriving. The product will show signal strength’s for 802.11b or 802.11g. Interestingly we can remove the wifi gadget when we need to wash the cloth. The t-shirt is black in color and 100% cotton. Battery pack is concealed in a small pocket inside the t-shirt. The battery conception is about 3 hours for a AAA battery. Hopefully I will buy one soon .