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Has anyone deployed or has any other experience with Open Mash systems ?

www.open-mesh.com

I am doing a consultancy and the customer has proposed these devices as a solution. I have to admit, I actually hadn't heard of them, so would be interested in anyone's experiences.

Thanks.

Wow!!! Prices that can?t be beat!!! Never tried it, and at those prices never would. For rock solid mesh try Belair, when they say -99dB receive sensitivity they mean -99 dB receive sensitivity!!! Maybe this would work for a cheap hotel or something, just would not be acceptable in the enterprise environments that I work in.

Btw a Belair AP100 starts @2 grand.

You do have to ask yourself what is the difference between a $60 access point and a $2000 access point for mesh.

Well just looking at it physically you can see straight away that there are differences, single antenna, plastic casing. Then the internals, how good is the processor and the radio. How will it perform under load etc.

If I was consulting for a client and his primary objective was lowest cost, ie I have mentioned Cisco, Aruba, Moto, sorry dont see much Bellair in the UK and he suddenly goes "Hey what about these guys, I can get 30 of these for 1 of those?" I would seriously consider walking away .

I doubt that as a consultant you could position these to do as good or better a joob even on a price break point of view. At that price they have to be nasty.

Yeah, I know.

Open Mesh is like a cheap Meraki, if you have enough of them they may work well in certain circumstances. I don't see any WiFi alliance certs though. It may be like DD-WRT, where they put their own firmware on some third party hardware.

For the install I am looking at Aerohive, as I like the fact it doesn't use a controller, though most of my hands on is with Cisco. Cisco is just too expensive for this project.The challenge is to install a system that can be used to charge for guest access (it's in a hotel) however, most equipment we are looking at will take between 6 and 10 years before it pays for itself, which is too long. Hence, the customer googled and found...

NSM

As mentioned, "ya gets what ya pays for". However, I can see some application areas that could benefit from this, in terms of cost:

http://churchit.com/open-mesh-simple-and-affordable-wireless-network-solution-for-churches/

Dave

I would be interested in testing the software. However, if you don't like the hardware it does appear to run on the Ubiquiti gear.

Check this out: http://www.belairnetworks.com/resources/pdfs/Westin_Dplmt_BDMD00017-A01.pdf
39 floors, almost 1000 rooms, and only 6 AP?s! Have seen similar results with other surveys/installs I?ve done with their equipment. Good stuff.

Has anyone actually seen the as builts for the Westin? 998 rooms seems like an awful large coverage area for 6 APs. Granted it says units, so I guess it could be an array, but still.

I must have stayed in a hotel like the Westin, I swear the walls were so thin I coul here the mice farting 3 floors away! So yeah I guess 6 aps could cover that area!

I feel like I should add my 2 cents here. :)

I just want to throw Ruckus into the mix. According to Dell Oro, we now have 57% of the outdoor mesh market in terms of shipped devices.

Anywhoo... if you are in the market for outdoor Wi-Fi, let me know and I'll see what I can do to help.

GT