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Comment by mnzaki | Hacker News Reader

In the less dense areas the most economical solution for great connectivity is definitely mesh networks. They are even being deployed in very rural areas at a very low cost! http://owni.fr/files/2011/09/Building_a_Rural_Wireless_Mesh_...

Obviously there are better (commercial, prepackaged) mesh network solutions

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Mesh networking hasn't really worked out. WISPs, i.e. Wireless Internet Service Providers, do a great job at serving rural (and other) areas.

Hmmm I think it's a bit of a stretch to say mesh networking hasn't really worked out. It just hasn't spread far enough yet.

Have you heard of CJDNS[1]? or BATMAN[2]?

Hyperboria[3] is multiple sizeable deployments of CJDNS. Maybe you heard of Freifunk[4] in Germany, with over 40k access points so far.

[1] https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.A.T.M.A.N.

[3] http://hyperboria.net/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freifunk

Yes, I've heard of them and others, but I think dboreham already put the matter conclusively at rest:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16138402

For buildings (offices, condos, apartments), air fiber solutions are way better and often faster than fiber pulls. 60 GHz microwave, building-to-building if needed, all are in the big cities... why waste time fighting rights to run fiber in dense urban cores?

Define way better. Wireless solutions have many benefits, but they are in no way better in all aspects than fiber.

Fiber has its place, as has wireless.

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