Three Port Elizabeth-based Internet entrepreneurs who have been selected to take part in the Founders Space accelerator programme in San Francisco, which is ranked among the top 10 Silicon Valley technology incubators in the world by Forbes magazine.
For the next month Mike Kyazze, Sabelo Sibanda and Thulisile Volwana will be attending classes, workshops, seminars and mentoring sessions at the Silicon Valley incubator, followed by demos to potential investors.
Sibanda is looking forward to the programme and promoting the trios Tuse mesh network app. (see: Locally developed Tuse mesh network app)
The Wikipedia definition of a Mesh Network is: “A mesh network is a network topology in which each node relays data for the network. All mesh nodes cooperate in the distribution of data in the network. Mesh networks can relay messages using either a flooding technique or a routing technique.”
Simply put – enabled devices share and transmit data to other devices in range.
Wireless mesh networks were originally developed for military applications.
Wireless mesh networks often consist of mesh clients, mesh routers and gateways. The mesh clients are often laptops, cell phones and other wireless devices while the mesh routers forward traffic to and from the gateways which may, but need not, be connect to the Internet. The coverage area of the radio nodes working as a single network is sometimes called a mesh cloud.
Imagine if you will a mesh network being like your Torrent Client which enables you to receive and transmit data, except that a wireless mesh network does not require you to be connected to the internet to share – only to have several mesh devices passing your message on.
The Tuse app is the software that manages and connects users on a mesh network.
An Australian developed Serval Project is a Shuttleworth Foundation Funded Project. Serval is a telecommunications system comprised of at least two mobile phones that are able to work outside of regular mobile phone tower range due thanks to the Serval App and Serval Mesh. A Serval enabled phone is capable of sharing the app with another phone and as long as two phones are within the mesh network they can dial each other and connect without using cellular time or data.
A similar app to the Tuse mesh network app was released in March 2014 – FireChat. FireChat makes use of a feature Apple introduced in the latest version of its iOS mobile software, iOS7, called multipeer connectivity. This feature allows phones to connect to one another directly using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi as an alternative to the Internet. If you’re using FireChat, its “nearby” chat room lets you exchange messages with other users within 100 feet without sending data via your cellular provider.
It will be interesting to see what innovations the Tuse app brings to the mesh network space.
Alan Straton
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