Building a Mesh Network in Rural Somaliland

[cinquemb]

I think it's pretty amazing the way that certain technologies that might be considered bleeding edge by some, are being adopted more in the developing world out of practical needs. Even more so as the costs of maintaining aging copper/fibops grows, the less perceived incentive to move towards more modular and decentralized systems ("we invested all this money already") for the increasing burden of maintaining that would be placed upon on others in developed countries.

Though this makes me wonder, the routers are running some kind of openwrts firmware[0], it would be interesting if someone had the chance to unsquash/decompile it for backdoors because from a sigint perspective (especially in the horn of africa) being able to tap into these networks (like via uav recon ops) will probably be on the table.

Edit: Looks like they are funded by the New American Foundation[1] with Eric Schmidt as chairman, interesting…

[0] https://commotionwireless.net/download/routers

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_America_Foundation#Funding

[sliverstorm]

There are very good reasons the developed world uses hard lines, and none of them are "we already spent so much money on them". The drawbacks to this sort of network are much less of a problem in the developing world right now.

I mean, my word, you think the interference on your WiFi from neighbors is bad now...

[sOuqq]

the project is open source so you can also take a look through the source code: https://github.com/opentechinstitute/commotion-router

[samirmenon]

Wow! Really interesting post. I've always wanted to set up a mesh network, just for the learning experience. Just one question I've been wondering:

How much do you think the whole setup would've cost if you did it yourself? I ask because I've always thought that the cost of the special hardware for a mesh network was the major limiting factor.

[benbristow]

I didn't write this. Just found it. You'll have to ask the author.

[freifunk_berlin]

Cost per outdoor router is somewhere around 60€.

[jdmitch]

> Somaliland receives its Internet connection via microwaves across the desert from Djibouti.

Surely the main way people access the internet is through 3G either directly on the phones or on mobile broadband. When I was in Hargeisa in 2008, 3G connectivity was common, and I would assume that it is still the case (though its possible Abaarso doesn't have a very good mobile connection).

[Jtsummers]

I took that to mean the region (and thus the service providers) and not the individual users.

[xtrumanx]

Actually, what he means are the ISPs in Somaliland receive their internet from Djibouti via microwave (at least Somtel does; not quite sure about Telesom).

The ISPs then distribute their internet connection to their customers via DSL, 3G, etc.

[jlgaddis]

> Surely the main way people access the internet is through 3G either directly on the phones or on mobile broadband.

I don't know if that's true or not but I'd be willing to bet that most of the cellular towers there (providing 3G/mobile broadband) are themselves using microwave backhauls, quite possibly the same one(s) carrying the "Internet connection".

[pedrocr]

The points in the network are in the range that Cat6 can handle. Wouldn't it be easier to just run cat6 between the points and put 50$ APs with gigabit in each point? You'd get wifi and gigabit for the clients and regular switched gigabit interconnect. Surely it would be much faster and more reliable. A few TP-Link TL-WDR3600 APs would do nicely and even give you a couple of USB ports to attach some printers for network printing.

[dbarlett]

You'd have to use fiber. Copper between buildings is susceptible to ground loops and one lightning strike frying the entire network.

[salient]

Since this will end up being a sort of "new Internet", I hope they start by building this one with security in mind from the ground up. We don't want to end-up with a next-gen Internet, that's just as broken as this one, security wise, especially since you basically have to have access to someone else's phone or computer, to get in the network.

[abkco]

While this isn't what commotion is using, its what we are using for Project Meshnet. "Cjdns implements an encrypted IPv6 network using public-key cryptography for address allocation and a distributed hash table for routing." https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns

[nkvl]

Wonderful, congratulations!