What Is a Mesh Network?

This is sometimes annoying that the video stops when we are catching up on the most recent You Tube video, or there’s no signal in the kitchen when we want to watch the cooking video. The poor wireless signal is really a headache since people’s life has relied heavily on WiFi today. How will you fix this? Welcome to the new network solution—mesh router systems. Simply put, it consists of several small routers that communicate with each other to provide a seamless wireless network in your house. This is the reason that encourages you switch from a wireless router to a mesh network. So what is a mesh network?

What Is a Mesh Network

Wiki says a mesh network is a local network topology in which the infrastructure nodes (like data switch or bridges ) connect directly and non-hierarchically, in order to efficiently route data to the end users via the nodes. This network enables the network devices that can provide connectivity capabilities like bluetooth or wifi to form a node one after another. Then a dynamic route is formed between each device and the others, and as a result the data can be delivered within the mesh network. When a node in the network topology fails, other nodes that connect with this one will also fail. But luckily, the whole network will still work, because only one connection point is broken which will not affect the other connections. Thus, we often regard the wireless mesh network as a decentralized information network.

example of what is a mesh network

Figure: Example of Mesh Network

Benefits of Using a Mesh Network

What is a mesh network, after figuring out this question, let’s turn to the benefits of a mesh network. Compared with the ordinary Internet which is built on a few centralized access points or Internet Service Providers, mesh network enjoys many benefits.

  • Extremely Reliable and Expandable

The most striking feature of a mesh network is the construction. This means users can add the wireless router in the specified places, thus they can build a new broadband access network just by the existing facilities. It’s convenient to add or remove the wifi mesh nodes. In addition to expand the wifi range, the wifi mesh network can help one’s electronic devices connect the strongest wifi signal automatically when you walk around the room.

  • Support High Demand

In the above part what is a mesh network, we know each additional device in a mesh network is regarded as a node, the mesh topology can support high amount of network traffic. Thus, interconnected devices can send data smoothly.

  • Less Expensive

Traditional networks rely on multiple equipment such as Gigabit Ethernet switch or transceivers to connect users, while mesh network uses the wireless mesh nodes to spread data. Using fewer equipment means it costs less to build a network. A general 10 Gigabit switch will cost you about 2000 dollars, not mention the high-end switches or other network equipment. Also, using a mesh network will help to eliminate the complexity of cables installations.

How to Create a Mesh Network

It’s not enough to learn what is a mesh network and its benefits, we also need to know how to create a mesh network. At present, the main method of wireless access is to set up wifi in the hotspots places. In order to enable wireless access throughout the whole city, technicians have to create network access points as many as possible by numbers of cables or fiber optic cables. Unlike the normal wireless Internet, to form a mesh network, technicians only need to connect one node to a network such as Internet modem or router. Then the connected node will share its Internet connection with the other nodes within its range. Then one after another, more nodes are connected and a bigger mesh network is created.

Conclusion

As for the question what is a mesh network, I believe now you have a clear understanding. A mesh network has a greater range and is much faster and stronger than the normal wifi network. Any question about mesh network, please contact us via our website FS.COM.

Three Ways to Optimize Your Home Wireless Network

Nowadays, the home wireless network has grown significantly, which has brought a lot of convenience to people because of its fast and reliable features. But the world is not always perfect. When the signal keeps dropping or the speed is so slow, people might get frustrated. As a result, there has been a trend that people are more and more focusing on the speed of the network. This paper will give you some advice to optimize your home wireless network.

Organize Your Connected Devices

The easiest and most important way to optimize the home wireless network is to organize your connected devices in a structured media enclosure serve as the central hub. This enclosure can be the best housing for all of your devices, including routers, switches and modems, which can save you valuable space so that eliminate clutter and have easy access to all of your connected devices, all while maintaining a clean aesthetic. What is more, when you put your enclosure in the center of your home, your network connection coverage can be up to maximum. Remember that keep your access points off the floor, out of closets and cabinets, and away from walls and large metal objects, like file cabinets.

Check Your Network Devices

Check your network devices to make sure if they can still support the speed. You know, the technology is always advancing, so maybe it’s time to replace your old devices. For example, you can check the network adapter in your wireless devices such as computers or phones, to see if they use the 802.11n (wireless-N) protocol. If “Yes”, you can get the fastest speeds. But if your devices use the 802.11g protocol, it can be limited to wireless-G speeds (maximum 54 Mbps).

Also, you should know that the fewer devices on a wireless network, the faster the network is likely to run. So you can connect some of your equipment by a hardwired connection such as CAT cabling.

Change Channel Width

In order to adapt to the further advanced wireless protocols, one of the ways to increase the speed is using wider wireless channels. In general, if you want to achieve maximum speed, the routers should use a 40Mhz channel width. But the fact is that most routers come with 20MHz as the default width, which is in an attempt to avoid interference. This situation may be a potential negative affect on some users. If you start to notice issues, switch back to a 20Mhz operation. Also note that this isn’t really for increasing how fast you browse the internet. This change is more likely to be evident when streaming/transferring files between devices on your network. For this case, you can just find the “Channel Width” setting in your router’s setting and change it to “Auto 20/40MHz”.

Conclusion

After reading the above steps, it would be of some help to build your home wireless network. If you do check your devices or want to do some hardwired connections, you could visit FS.COM for help. It can offer the CAT cables and other telecommunication equipment with good quality and reasonable price, and you can pick up what you want. For more information, visit FS.COM.

Originally published at http://www.chinacablesbuy.com/three-ways-to-optimize-your-home-wireless-network.html