DISQUS

VentureBeat: Meraki raises $5M to “connect the next billion people”

  • will · 2 years ago
    I'm sure the ISP are beating down their door to endorse this (note the sarcasm!)

    seriously though, I can see this working only when the "complex" or co-op negotiate directly with an ISP for a bulk deal . . .

    otherwise, its not unlike fon or what ever that the other one is. . .
  • gzino · 2 years ago
    Certainly the P2P/mesh network type concept is exciting, but stating that 400 units could get the equivalent of one DSL connect from five DSL connects is a bit of a stretch, and isn't really the value proposition of this type of technology. Let's hope their algorithms, security, engineering, etc. are ahead of their marketing and PR...
  • DW · 2 years ago
    Yeah, it shouldn't be a value proposition of this technology. a Wifi connection with 56Kbps is bound to be frustrating. :)

    However, this is certainly an alternative if you can bring fibre to (some) curb in the area. You can connect an entire residential area with one fibre termination.

    However, I found that the "cheap mesh" technology usually have a limitation on the number of nodes per uplink. (about 50-ish). How is this technology different?
  • John Doe · 2 years ago
    Wow, this is great technology, this will save the urban areas in apartment style living a ton of money.

    I agree with the earlier comments that this will probably be used mainly by some form of apartments but I wonder how good is the security of this device.
  • anon doe · 2 years ago
    Let's see their beta example:

    1000 people with only 5 DSL lines ($20 each)

    So service provider instead of making $20,000 will make $100? What a concept!
  • Jeremy Toeman · 2 years ago
    Well, FON is failing in all but 4 countries, and they are targetting a tech-savvy market who would actually be interested in such a service.

    So these guys choose instead to go after low income households? Because of all that pent-up demand that lower income families have to get their powerful Wifi laptops online?

    That's a long uphill battle as far as I can see it...
  • Anonymous · 2 years ago
    Gzino, isn't this exactly what cable providers do already? If you Google for oversubscription rate, you'll see numbers like 20:1 or 40:1 (example).

    400:5 is 80:1, which seems pretty steep. On the otherhand, maybe they get a bunch of 3mbit lines and cap users at 1mbit?

    Anyway, I guess my point is it doesn't have to end up being dial-up rates. Or maybe I just bought into their plan!
  • Brian McConnell · 2 years ago
    I think they are being smart by hyping their focos on low income and developing markets, even if that's not where they find real success. I am planning to buy a few of these for my office. It looks like a cheap way to provide blanket wifi coverage. The price is certainly right.
  • WiFi from Wayback · 2 years ago
    I am sure you can make this work and get some number of packets per second. To say you will get anything near a full DSL connection is overhype, unless it was at 10am when everyone was out to work or at Starbucks. Even then you also will have significant latency, making Skype or any real time streaming media app dead in the water. Which may be ok for $1/mo.

    At night when everyone logs on, forget about the bandwidth... the collisions on the wire(less) will kill the bandwidth.

    IT's one thing for telecom engineers to plan for cell tower deployments, it's another thing to put these routers into 400 apartments and expect any reasonable spectrum sharing during heavy usage. It will fall apart.

    I would not have invested ten dollars in this deal.
  • Eli Tabs · 2 years ago
    [quote]At night when everyone logs on, forget about the bandwidth… the collisions on the wire(less) will kill the bandwidth.[/quote]

    Obviously you have not factored in the advances in Edge Server technology...
  • Anonymous · 2 years ago
    Google may have invested in the company, but I wonder why they're not recommending Meraki's gear for the muni wi-fi network they manage in Mountain View. Instead the technical nod goes to two other statups--Ruckus Wireless and PepLink...makes you wonder! source: http://wifi.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?an...
  • jjim smith · 1 year ago
    The commenters who are saying this is not a profitable business model are missing the point. The point is to connect people who are not able to afford the $30-$50 ripoff high speed price. By connecting the millions of people who are not now connected, they are gaining access to a huge market who will likely create capital in their use of the internet. Also, some people think there is "value" in including as many users as possible in the future economy and cultural exchange that is the internets.