They've set the maximum at seven hops, but depending on weather conditions, that can easily be several hundred miles.

Nothing special is needed for a repeater except that you probably will want a node with a solar panel such as the seeedStudio solar. You would put it up as high as you can get it. I generally say if it's more than 100 feet in the air, use router mode. If it is less than 100 feet but above 20 feet, use client. If it is less than 20 feet, use client mute.

Your node in your pocket or in your car should be on client mute mode since them broadcasting will not get the signal much farther and will just cause more channel utilization on high nodes.

Remember, that map is volunteer and only shows nodes of a day or less.

For example, I am the only node in my area who voluntarily puts myself on the map, but there are 10 others who do not.

Can you message random people or have to already know their contact info?

I thought Al Gore invented the internet in the ‘90’s.

Funny thing about Wi-Fi, it overlaps with an Amateur radio band (the 2.4GHz spec does) and so hams are allowed to run Wi-Fi with no encryption but a tremendous amount of power and high gain antennas on like the highest channels.

I wonder how much you could Jerry rig up Wimax for these days. That's like 30 miles of range. I remember thinking if I was only going within a 15 mile area of my place it would have been cool, but prices 10 years ago immediately made it a no.

Edit: like it sounds dumb, but what prevents someone from picking up a used Wimax base station, putting it as an uplink from their router, then using a Wimax card to receive it? Could even maybe just rig up a small rechargable wifi box, that received the Wimax signal, then rebroadcasts it back out as wifi using your home network name/password. So anywhere near your home the antenna would just pick it up and rebroadcast, maybe just hook it to your cigarette lighter to charge so anytime your in the car it's on. I assume most people would find it easier/cheaper to just buy a cellular card.. haha. But hypothetically, I am curious what would make it not work

People are just discussing the pros and cons of technology in the Technology comm. Chill out.

And then they make it illegal to protect the terrorists

We are in talks to build one for a local power utility. These are cheaper for nice-to-have sensors that aren't critical. Most electricity meters in Victoria use a mesh network provided through silverspring devices to collect usage readings.

I've also heard about a rural water utility using a mesh network to connect water meters together to reduce the number of times an onsite reading is required.

Telcos are already trying to compete with mesh networks by providing low bandwidth LTE-M services that are lower cost for utilities. Nokia are pushing 450connect, 450 alliance, etc as more competitors also.

There are plenty of use cases for low bandwidth systems and services. Isolated network is great when the telcos have pages too.