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WiFi Meshbox goes low-energy: "7,500% power savings possible" - Locustworld

The LocustWorld wirelesss mesh system is recognised as a low-energy system, using around 4w for each meshbox. As many users attach to each box the per-user energy cost for the LocustWorld system can be calculated as milli-watts per user. Now, the company is pushing users to switch to low-eneregy PCs, too.

"Live network systems work 24 hours a day, so over the lifetime of the system the energy savings from using the LocustWorld meshbox are substantial," reports marketing boss Richard Lander. "We have converted the regular office workstations in our laboratory, and find the new low energy systems savings are amazing,"

Alix is the key, says Lander. "It's based on new AMD processor technology, and  means we can replace a 200W PC with a workstation using less than 5W, making a 40 times improvement in energy efficiency."

These low energy workstations use the new processor boards from PC Engines, which are branded as Alix. "When workstations are used for 8 or more hours per day the energy savings add up. And low energy meshboxes can be run for a long time on a rechargeable battery."

This makes the meshbox very suitable for power from alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power, and it's also practical to build portable systems for testing and demonstration.

The obvious question is why one might build a portable machine, when so many are available in notebook form; the answer seems to be "because the Meshbox really doesn't need most of the features provided by a notebook." Cost price is much lower, and it's a far simpler system to run and debug.

One battery powered meshbox, nicknamed the "SpyBox", builds a meshbox and battery into an attache case for portable uses.

Here's the rest of the Blurb, which covers most aspects of the new systems:

"The spybox was originally developed for providing temporary mesh network extensions in a conference centre. Since then the spybox has taken off as a popular choice for signal testing at new sites and network demonstrations. Gridsmart recently carried out a simulated emergency scenario using spyboxes to provide instant data communications.

Some mesh projects use lamp-posts to mount their meshboxes. Lamp-posts are a good obvious site for widespread universal access wireless service providing a high level un-obstructed location with a built-in power supply. Typically the power supply to the lamp-post is only provided during lighting-up times. For lamp-post installations batteries can be used to provide day-time power, re-charging overnight when the power to the lights comes on.

New Braunfels, Texas, has a wide-spread wireless mesh network provided by Jeff Hunt from NBWifi. The New Braunfels network covers a 5 x 5 mile area using 20 meshboxes. With over 3000MB per day delivered to over 100 users, The energy calculations are impressive. The 20 meshboxes on the New Braunfels network use less than 100w in total, delivering services to an area of 25 square miles, making the energy required to deliver wireless broadband under 4w per square mile. In the last week there were 220 unique users on the network, which works out as under 500mw per user. In 24 hours the system uses 24 * 80w = 1.92kwh to deliver 3000MB, making the energy cost of each Gigabyte delivered 0.64kwh.

Yachana Lodge, the Amazonian Eco-Lodge in Ecuador uses the LocustWorld system to provide internet over a wide area of Rain Forest, powered by re-chargeable batteries. The batteries are charged from solar, hydro and diesel generators. Their ingenuity and success with penetrating otherwise impassable parts of the forest has earned them a strong reputation for innovation and achievement in this area.

Mr Kumar, from Shine Broadband in Kerala, India, was very pleased to hear that he did not need an air-conditioned server room to run his mesh network. All of the other systems he was considering needed a collection of server computers to provide firewall, DNS, authentication, network management, customer billing and support systems. So many computers then need a secure computer room with air-conditioning and a major AC-UPS to keep them running. The LocustWorld system achieves the same effect with a single meshbox, 4W of power and no moving parts. DC-UPS can be provided from a single 7AH battery which gives back-up power for over 24 hours.

Wifinity have made extensive installations of Lamp-Post mounted meshboxes, in the UK and Germany. Lamp-posts are often installed using un-metered power directly from the electricity company, which requires special arrangements for calculating the power bill. Wifinity have obtained an "UMSUG" rating that allows them to attach the meshbox to un-metered supplies, where the electricity costs are calculated from the rating data. Wifinity projects have received support from the Carbon Trust. The Carbon Trust encourages the development and use of low carbon technologies. In 2008 Wifinity received a Green Business award from the Mayor of London, in recognition of their low energy networking projects using LocustWorld systems.

Many other unique projects are making great progress delivering practical projects with low energy needs using the LocustWorld System.

 Links:
www.yachana.com
www.gridsmart.co.uk
www.elexon.co.uk
www.wifinity.co.uk
www.shinebroadband.net
www.pcengines.ch
www.carbontrust.co.uk