Wireless Mesh Networks/How many radios?

 Wireless Mesh Networks 

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Acknowledgements — Introduction — Mesh network basics — History Highlights — Motivation — Economics — Politics — Social Impact — Regulatory — Taxonomy of Mesh Types — Design Parameters — How many radios? — Transport — Access — RF concerns — What layers does it run on? — Topology Control — Mobility Handoffs — Applications — Content — Operations — Accounting and Billing — Management — Getting Power to the Node — Survey Tools — Planning Tools — Mounting Options — Testing Tools — Meshes you can build — Conclusion — Applicable Standards — Known Deployments — Mesh Timeline — Mesh Network Vendors — Bibliography — Glossary — Index

How many radios?

Meshes can be built with nodes that have a single radio, two radios and multiple radios. The number of radios in mesh nodes depends on the throughput and latency demands of the mesh network.

One

Single radio wireless mesh nodes are low cost, but are limited by latency and scalability. The single radio node has take turns providing client access and transport to the network. The node is forced to store and forward and thus introduces latency.

Two

Dual-radio wireless mesh nodes enhance the scalability and capacity of the wireless mesh network. One radio is used for client access and the other radio provides transport. Since the radios operate independently on two different frequencies, one radio can send while the other one is receiving. This reduces the latency from the access link to the transport link. However, when one node is relaying from one node to the next, a two radio node still needs to store and forward, which introduces latency.

Three or More

A multi-radio wireless mesh node solves the latency problem for both the access link and the transport link. Multi-radio wireless nodes perform with very low latency and work well with real-time applications such as multimedia, voice and video applications. Because the throughput is related to throughput, multi-radio nodes address high density coverage areas, and can be used to aggregate traffic from single- and dual-radio wireless mesh nodes.

Sample Deployments

Colgate University