Does anyone here have a mesh network in their community?

[shcrane71]

If one got one of these networks working in a community, would that mean that people on the networks would no longer need to pay an ISP for connectivity?

[Dead_Parrot]

1. You'd still want a hook-up somewhere...

...unless they only wanted to talk to each other. But you can get a decent connection and spread the cost among a few dozen people.

I'd caution that meshes can be a little on the slow side - so depending on the number of people, what they want to do and and how spread out they are, you might do better with a bridged solution.

[shcrane71]

2. I read an article in, I believe, Scientific American that stated

that mesh networks could prevent a top-down black out as happened in Egypt. But it seems, one would still need to go to one of the few large ISPs for a T1, T3?? line?

Theoretically, is it possible for separate networks to talk to each other? In other words, could these networks become so large as to connect people from different cities? I have a very rudimentary understanding of networking. My apologies if these are dumb questions.