Mesh Less Cost of Wireless 

A networking tool designed to let soldiers maintain constant communication on the battlefield is being redeployed for a non-military purpose: providing free broadband connections.

The devices, known as MeshBoxes, allow for hundreds of Internet users to share a single broadband connection.

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With just five MeshBoxes, the tiny municipality of Kingsbridge, Devon, in western England, was able to provide broadband access to the citizens who live in the center of town. A group of enthusiasts eventually wants to provide all 5,000 of the town's residents with wireless broadband.

Frustrated with British Telecommunications' slow progress in wiring the town with DSL, two members of the Kingsbridge Link project took charge. They purchased the MeshBoxes for around $2,400, and strategically placed them in the center of town.

The boxes piggyback off a single broadband pipeline owned by one of the local businesses and distribute bandwidth to the residents who tap into the network.

Users can download and swap information, share printers and even bandwidth -- for free. To partake in the network, they need only a PC card for their laptops ($80) or a Wi-Fi radio adapter for desktop computers that could be purchased off the shelf for about $160.

The eventual goal for the MeshBoxes is to get enough of them out on the street so that almost anyone could get Internet access from anywhere, said Jon Anderson, co-founder of LocustWorld, the company that sells the MeshBoxes.

According to Anderson, LocustWorld has sold about 270 MeshBoxes to date. He hopes the technology will eventually be used throughout Europe, such that anyone traveling outside their homes would be able to pop open their laptops and surf the Web wherever they go.

"The long-term plan for this is to build absolutely gigantic networks," he said. "It's evolving into such a total reality."

Industry analysts have doubts as to whether this plan could be implemented on a larger scale.

Seamus McAteer, an analyst with Zelos Group, said such a scenario requires the cooperation of individual users, who would have to agree to share the same phone line. Similarly, DSL providers, who own the pipelines, would have to back the idea.

However, the concept relies on two technologies that are already readily available: Wi-Fi and mesh networks.

Wi-Fi, the most popular form of wireless Internet access, is practically ubiquitous in coffee shops, airports, offices and homes in the United States. The technology was slow to catch on in Europe, but that appears to be changing.

The number of so-called hot spots in Europe -- places where people can receive Wi-Fi access -- has jumped from 269 at the end of 2001 to 1,150 at the end of last year, a gain of 327 percent, according to market research firm IDC.

Both a drastic decline in price for Wi-Fi gear and easing of federal restrictions surrounding the build-out of hot spots contributed to a surge in Wi-Fi use, IDC said in a recent report.

Even though the concept of tapping into Wi-Fi networks for Internet access is fairly new in the region, some European communities are already looking at ways to connect these hot spots for wide-area seamless coverage. That's where mesh networks come into play.

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