[mesh-dev] In defense of the private SSID

[Deekoo]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 08:46:52PM -0800, Alexander Papazoglou wrote:
> A slightly off-topic question to ponder: Is it worth the overhead to offer
> a 'private' wifi
> interface, as in the current firmware? For those not familiar with this,
> the firmware currently
> advertises a 'private' WPA2-secured SSID which the owner of the node can
> use as
> their personal access point; it routes directly to the internet via their
> connection without
> going through the exit node. It also serves as a management interface.
> 
> My thoughts are that:
> 
>  1. There are not that many people with Internet access at home and no AP.

Strategy Analytics suggests around 35% (worldwide, fixed-line broadband only)
don't have wireless routers at home.
http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=reportabstractviewer&a0=10232

IMO, the private SSID is a pretty key feature.  A replacement AP that also
shares your bandwidth with the neighbours and might give you emergency
internet access when your DSL is down is a cool thing.  An EXTRA AP that
only the neighbours use is going to wind up being left unplugged (or not
power cycled should it crash) and only get brought back up when your DSL
goes down.

>  2. Yet another subnet must be reserved (albeit not globally).
>  3. DHCP must be done.
>  4. NAT must be performed for the subnet.
How much extra burden are these actually?  I have the impression that it's
negligible.

>  5. More radio bandwidth will be used on the same channel as the mesh.
I don't think that's a major issue - if the typical person's internet usage
is enough to severely degrade a node, then we probably have to abandon wifi
meshing entirely - at least in densely populated areas.  The edge cases who
do use enough bandwidth to clobber a node can fall back to using multiple APs
on multiple channels, or wired links.  (If I'm regularly saturating 11Mbps I
probably will be happier on 100baseT anyhow!)