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The Semantic Web & THE POWER OF PULL » Blog Archive » Mesh Networks

Mesh Networks

January 27, 2010

The FAA had a problem: they wanted to update their air-traffic control system from the radar-based one that was designed in the 1930s. For starters, the FAA knows that inefficient routing costs airlines more than $1b annually in wasted fuel. For another, the number of flights in the US is expected to go from 90,000 per day to over 180,000 per day by 2020. There was no way to double the number of runways, controllers, or air space in that short time frame. They needed a better way to manage air traffic.

Their approach to the problem was to hire a bunch of management and IT consultants and architect the best new system anyone had ever seen (similar to the way Bill Gates thinks he’s trying to help people in Africa). As Baseline magazine reports:

Modernization of the U.S. air traffic control system has been a disaster story of epic proportions. The General Accounting Office estimates the cost of the push to modernize its information systems that the FAA started in 1981 will top $45 billion by 2005. Until recently, there was little to show for it.

The FAA finally figured out that a central system wasn’t going to scale up to meet today’s demand, let alone tomorrow’s. So they went back and started building small, simple solutions that let airplanes communicate with each other. They’ve constructed a new data backbone that lets pilots and airlines improvise to meet their needs as the arise. The system, called NextGen, is meant to enable airplanes to pass information back and forth to each other and to the ground. Importantly, it’s meant to carry information no one has seen the need for yet. The FAA produced a series of short videos to show the vision.

This is an ad hoc approach to building systems, one that’s actually working. As I describe in my book, airlines and UPS are already using some of the components to save hundreds of millions of dollars.

Let’s look at that word, ad hoc, for a second. It means as-needed. A good example is that soon, ad hoc networks will allow people in a single airplane, or even in many separate airplanes, to establish a network, see each other, pass information back and forth, play games, attend meetings using video, etc. At the end of the flight, the network essentially goes away, or it could continue as people move through various parts of their day. It comes up as needed and goes away again without anyone setting anything up. In other words, you don’t need an IT guy to set up an ad hoc network.

An ad hoc network is an organic network that springs up to meet demands and scales as the problem grows, without a lot of planning. The term mesh network means a network with no central control point, one that can easily expand, contract, or repair itself as needed. For example, the GSM network of mobile phone towers was designed as a mesh network from the beginning to be redundant and flexible. So were the internet protocols. Now INSTEDD is helping build a rapid-response network to new disease outbreaks. This new, adaptive network can handle emails, tweets, SMS messages, voice messages, data feeds, and more. Sonos is helping turn your home into a mesh network of sound. Businesses will need more flexible, lightweight networks like this to be able to adapt to new conditions and facilitate rapid-response teams.

In this excellent TED video, Robin Chase, who built a company called Zipcar, tells us why mesh networks are so important.

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