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BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

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Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#141

Post by andruby »

davemp wrote: post #138
DoctorOetker wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the popularity of these protocols, because when I looked at the legal duty cycles and multiplied that by time in a day and instantaneous bitrate, the result was a disappointing amount of data per day... So many spectrum rules are totally weird though: should they be interpreted per radio device? or per user? What -apart from cost- prevents a user who wants more bandwidth from installing 10 devices…

> What -apart from cost- prevents a user who wants more bandwidth from installing 10 devices in parallel and alternate each radio so none of the radios exceed their allowed transmit duty cycle? Folks with badges knocking on the user’s door. It is pretty trivial to locate stationary signals.

The point they are making is that if the limit is _per device_ than using 10 devices doesn't break the rules.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#142

Post by UltraSane »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #133
AlphaWeaver wrote: post #22

The "100x bandwidth" claim needs to be substantiated. There are some significant regulatory issues with the current popular mesh network protocols in the USA, namely that neither MeshCore or Meshtastic are compliant with the actual FCC regulations. 100x bandwidth because you're breaking the rules isn't the same as 100x bandwidth legally. Here is the issue discussing this in the MeshCore repository: https://github.com…

I never understood the popularity of these protocols, because when I looked at the legal duty cycles and multiplied that by time in a day and instantaneous bitrate, the result was a disappointing amount of data per day... So many spectrum rules are totally weird though: should they be interpreted per radio device? or per user? What -apart from cost- prevents a user who wants more bandwidth from installing 10 devices…

Meshtastic routing is also completely broken.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#143

Post by rcoder »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #100
Gigachad wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are toys. For real work it makes so much more sense to use the internet. With the new satellite tech you can reach the internet everywhere. Mesh radio is a fun way to chat with radio nerds in your area. Not a serious infrastructure.

So what’s the real solution for when Starlink is too expensive and too high power? I really want to solution for remote mountaineering communication that’s not just GMRS. And what about remote weather sensors? I really don’t need a full internet connection just to send a tiny payload every 5 minutes. Meshtastic should be the obvious answer for this but in my limited experience the app(s) and code are buggy on even th…

How remote is "remote"?

If you're talking about a few miles/KMs between nodes, plain old LoRaWAN might be more than sufficient, esp. for the sensor use case. The nice thing about using LoRaWAN is that's it's literally providing an IPv6 overlay so you can run e.g. MQTT or a text-based messaging protocol designed for regular TCP/IP use. UDP is preferable to avoid frequent session resets and keepalive traffic chewing up your available bandwidth.

Meshtastic and MeshCore can theoretically provide "infinite" range so long as there are peers between the nodes you want to connect. Theoretically, mobile peers can also serve as store-and-forward nodes so that reachability doesn't need to be constant, just frequent enough to handle the messaging you want to do.

I would absolutely not rely on either for a safety-critical application, though. If you want emergency comms in case something happens while you're out on the mountain, use a satellite communicator. There are a ton of these marketed for outdoor/portable use, and they have much more robust "SOS" capabilities (up to and including direct dispatch of search-and-rescue).

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#144

Post by rcoder »

Gigachad wrote: post #104
andwur wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a different jamming scenario however. Starlink is comparatively centralised, and reliant on both terrestrial (ground stations) and satellite communication. While the terminals themselves are sparse and widely distributed, the backbone infrastructure is far less so. It's possible to target the satellites, ground stations and critical service dependencies (e.g. GPS) rather than needing to target the hundred of tho…

I suspect jamming LoRa could be a lot easier than most radio though. LoRa signals are incredibly weak and long range. A jammer which jams at a massively higher power level could cover a massive area. You can also just flood the network with messages that nodes will happily relay further for you.

That's a DoS attack, not "jamming". RF jamming usually relies on flooding frequencies with garbage which doesn't get interpreted as valid protocol traffic but does "crowd out" legitimate use.

The protocol-aware class of attack you describe does require some knowledge of the radio parameters being used, since LoRa runs on very narrow bands and uses both time and frequency-hopping to avoid congestion on any one virtual channel. They even apply (very basic) encryption to messages to prevent unknown senders from flooding the channel.

Unfortunately, both systems come preconfigured out of the box to use a default configuration which most users never override. So like cheap FRS/GMRS walkie talkies, all it takes is a few jerks who don't care about common use to overwhelm everyone with bogus messages. If you fire up a new device running the default Meshtastic firmware in any kind of dense urban environment, odds are it will more or less immediately get inundated with spam: "ping", "test", "hello from ", etc.

And since MT + MC both flood the shared channels to push messages across intermediary nodes, they pretty much self-DDoS by doing...nothing.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#145

Post by Zigurd »

davemp wrote: post #138
DoctorOetker wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the popularity of these protocols, because when I looked at the legal duty cycles and multiplied that by time in a day and instantaneous bitrate, the result was a disappointing amount of data per day... So many spectrum rules are totally weird though: should they be interpreted per radio device? or per user? What -apart from cost- prevents a user who wants more bandwidth from installing 10 devices…

> What -apart from cost- prevents a user who wants more bandwidth from installing 10 devices in parallel and alternate each radio so none of the radios exceed their allowed transmit duty cycle? Folks with badges knocking on the user’s door. It is pretty trivial to locate stationary signals.

Law enforcement that isn't solving 50% of murders also isn't looking for exotic crimes unless there's a lot of money in it for them.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#146

Post by mapt »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #133
AlphaWeaver wrote: post #22

The "100x bandwidth" claim needs to be substantiated. There are some significant regulatory issues with the current popular mesh network protocols in the USA, namely that neither MeshCore or Meshtastic are compliant with the actual FCC regulations. 100x bandwidth because you're breaking the rules isn't the same as 100x bandwidth legally. Here is the issue discussing this in the MeshCore repository: https://github.com…

I never understood the popularity of these protocols, because when I looked at the legal duty cycles and multiplied that by time in a day and instantaneous bitrate, the result was a disappointing amount of data per day... So many spectrum rules are totally weird though: should they be interpreted per radio device? or per user? What -apart from cost- prevents a user who wants more bandwidth from installing 10 devices…

These things aren't "Internet Access", they're an easy way to get service that is bandwidth-equivalent to SMS, MMS, IRC or walkie talkie, over complex and distant terrain, without any central coordinating authority. Potentially even acting as last-mile to repeater nodes that pass through the actual Internet. This is a terrifically useful idea of a network in certain conditions, though in other conditions it's probably just going to be last-mile for your personal Gmail account.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#147

Post by rocqua »

rcoder wrote: post #143
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what’s the real solution for when Starlink is too expensive and too high power? I really want to solution for remote mountaineering communication that’s not just GMRS. And what about remote weather sensors? I really don’t need a full internet connection just to send a tiny payload every 5 minutes. Meshtastic should be the obvious answer for this but in my limited experience the app(s) and code are buggy on even th…

How remote is "remote"? If you're talking about a few miles/KMs between nodes, plain old LoRaWAN might be more than sufficient, esp. for the sensor use case. The nice thing about using LoRaWAN is that's it's literally providing an IPv6 overlay so you can run e.g. MQTT or a text-based messaging protocol designed for regular TCP/IP use. UDP is preferable to avoid frequent session resets and keepalive traffic chewing up…

Is there any implementation of the store and forward for mobile nodes?

From what I recall, meshcore de duplication only tracks like the last 256 messages so that could quickly fail to de duplicate.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#148

Post by subscribed »

nubinetwork wrote: post #132
slow_typist wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not on the 2.4 GHz band though

Our local discord questions the use of 2.4ghz for longer than 50 feet, between WiFi and Bluetooth, microwaves, and millions of "2.4 GHz (nonspec) wireless devices", the spectrum is just trashed.

Halow works though.

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#149

Post by esseph »

KaiserPro wrote: post #125
esseph wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is fiber optic. Fiber optic tethers limit range and target conditions. You can't go into a forest or even an urban canyon, you basically need to run the drone along roads and fields. And you have to drag it with you, which reduces what you can carry. The fiber itself is very light weight and has a habit of getting sucked up into the props on quadcopters. There's a lot of frequency hopping and chirp sys…

> which reduces what you can carry. the flip side of that is that your operator can be miles away, and using repeaters, hundreds of miles away. As the operator is the difficult to replace part, its a fair tradeoff. Frequency hopping is nice, as is spread spectrum but its still easily detectable, as is the operator.

You don't use frequency hopping to avoid detection, you use frequency hopping to reduce jamming effectiveness and reduce message pickup/capture (encrypted).

Re: BYOMesh – New LoRa mesh radio offers 100x the bandwidth

#150

Post by subscribed »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #100
Gigachad wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are toys. For real work it makes so much more sense to use the internet. With the new satellite tech you can reach the internet everywhere. Mesh radio is a fun way to chat with radio nerds in your area. Not a serious infrastructure.

So what’s the real solution for when Starlink is too expensive and too high power? I really want to solution for remote mountaineering communication that’s not just GMRS. And what about remote weather sensors? I really don’t need a full internet connection just to send a tiny payload every 5 minutes. Meshtastic should be the obvious answer for this but in my limited experience the app(s) and code are buggy on even th…

For emergency communication? Iridium, zoleo, JS8Call, packet radio.

Not LORA.

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