About 5 years ago I had this idea for a new way devices can network. I just came across some notes I had about it so I thought I’d post it just to get it out there get feedback from people or maybe find some electrical and network engineers to tell me why it is not a good idea.

The basic idea is every device has an array of transmitters and receivers. Based on local network load, each device is required to dedicate a certain percentage of its receivers and transmitters to passing data through to other devices.

Some of the other ideas I had for it include a strict time code tied to some common frequency so that the network could also handle coordination of realtime events and timing. The main idea is that the devices become the network infrastructure and help eliminate things like the last mile problem.

From feedback I’ve heard so far the biggest issue with mesh networks like this is latency. Since there are so many nodes involved, it is hard to determine the shortest path between devices and the latency associated with each hop would add up quickly. The other big issue is power… since you’re passing all this extra data through a device it’s consuming a lot of power with no benefit to the device.

Let me know any thoughts you have about this concept