question: How are "mesh" WiFi setups different than a single router with WiFi extenders?
comment: WiFi range extenders are basically just wireless routers without the 'Router part' (AKA: Wireless Access Points). They plug in to your router using a wired connection and create a separate wireless network. If it connects to your main WiFi wirelessly, then it becomes a Wireless repeater, which doesn't work as efficiently. - With range extenders, your device (Phone, laptop, etc.) must determine which access point to connect to, this usually isn't very reliable as most devices will want to stay connected to their current AP for as long as possible. & #x200B; WiFi Mesh systems more closely resemble enterprise WiFi systems, in which a single device controls all of the wireless access points and it creates one single network. This controller will monitor all of the wirelessly connected devices (IE: Your phone, or laptop) and determine which access point they should connect to. This means you can walk around your house and your device will seamlessly connect between multiple access points to maintain the strongest possible signal. Some WiFi mesh systems will connect their access points through wireless signals, but these will still be vulnerable to interference just like range extenders. The best way is to connect them using wires. & #x200B; **TLDR:** WiFi mesh works better because the router will control which access point your device connects to in order to maintain the strongest possible signal. Both mesh and range extenders suffer from interference if you connect them using wireless instead of wires.
passages: BULLET::::- In early 2007, the US-based firm Meraki launched a mini wireless mesh router. The 802.11 radio within the Meraki Mini has been optimized for long-distance communication, providing coverage over 250 metres. In contrast to multi-radio long-range mesh networks with tree-based topologies and their advantages in O(n) routing, the Maraki had only one radio, which it used for both client access as well as backhaul traffic.
   BULLET::::- Google Home, Google Wi-Fi, and Google OnHub all support Wi-Fi mesh (i.e., Wi-Fi ad hoc) networking. Several manufacturers of Wi-Fi routers began offering mesh routers for home use in the mid-2010s.
   BULLET::::- In 2004, TRW Inc. engineers from Carson, California, successfully tested a multi-node mesh wireless network using 802.11a/b/g radios on several high speed laptops running Linux, with new features such as route precedence and preemption capability, adding different priorities to traffic service class during packet scheduling and routing, and quality of service. Their work concluded that data rate can be greatly enhanced using MIMO technology at the radio front end to provide multiple spatial paths.
   It is a general perception that meshfree methods are much more expensive than the FEM counterparts. The recent study has found however, some meshfree methods such as the S-PIM and S-FEM can be much faster than the FEM counterparts.
   From the point of view of a wireless clients, IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh networks appear as a conventional infrastructure mode topology, and are centrally configured as such. The formation of the mesh's BSS, as well as wireless traffic management (including path selection and forwarding) is negotiated between the nodes (redistribution points) of the mesh infrastructure. The mesh's BSS is distinct from the networks (which may also be wireless) used by a mesh's redistribution points to communicate with one another.
   A shared mesh (also known as 'traditional' or 'best effort' mesh) is a wireless mesh network that uses a single radio to communicate via mesh backhaul links to all the neighboring nodes in the mesh. This is a first generation mesh where the total available bandwidth of the radio channel is ‘shared’ between all the neighboring nodes in the mesh. The capacity of the channel is further consumed by traffic being forwarded from one node to the next in the mesh – reducing the end to end traffic that can be passed. Because bandwidth is shared amongst all nodes in the mesh, and because every link in the mesh uses additional capacity, this type of network offers much lower end to end transmission rates than a switched mesh and degrades in capacity as nodes are added to the mesh.
   Wireless mesh nodes typically include both mesh backhaul links and client access. A dual radio shared mesh node uses separate access and mesh backhaul radios. Only the mesh backhaul radio is shared. In a single radio shared mesh node, access and mesh backhaul are collapsed onto a single radio. Now the available bandwidth is shared between both the mesh links and client access, further reducing the end to end traffic available.
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Wireless mesh network
  
  BULLET::::- IEEE 802.11
  
  BULLET::::- Mesh networking
  
  BULLET::::- Switched mesh
  
  BULLET::::- Wi-Fi
  
  BULLET::::- Wireless LAN
  
  BULLET::::- 802.16
  
  Section::::External links.
   BULLET::::- Freifunk (DE) / FunkFeuer (AT) / OpenWireless (CH)
  
  BULLET::::- Firechat
  
  BULLET::::- Firetide
  
  BULLET::::- Guifi.net
  
  BULLET::::- Netsukuku
  
  BULLET::::- Ninux (IT)
  
  BULLET::::- NYC Mesh
  
  BULLET::::- Red Hook Wi-Fi
  
  Section::::Products.
  
  BULLET::::- Aruba AirMesh - multiservice wireless mesh networks for outdoors
  
  BULLET::::- Cisco Meraki - Mesh networking - access points as gateways and repeaters
  
  BULLET::::- D-Link - Wi-Fi Mesh
  
  BULLET::::- Datto - Datto WiFi (formerly Open Mesh) - wireless mesh access points, repeaters and bridging
  
  BULLET::::- Juniper Wireless Mesh - wireless mesh and bridging
  
  BULLET::::- Linksys Velop - Mesh WiFi and networking
  
  BULLET::::- Nokia - Wireless mesh Beacons
   Mesh topology may be contrasted with conventional star/tree local network topologies in which the bridges/switches are directly linked to only a small subset of other bridges/switches, and the links between these infrastructure neighbours are hierarchical. While star-and-tree topologies are very well established, highly standardized and vendor-neutral, vendors of mesh network devices have not yet all agreed on common standards, and interoperability between devices from different vendors is not yet assured.
  
  Section::::Basic principles.
   A mesh often consists of many small nodes. When mobile users or heavy loads are concerned, there will often be a handoff from one base station to another, and not only from 802.11 but from other (GSM, Bluetooth, PCS and other cordless phone) networks. Accordingly, IEEE 802.21, which specifies this handoff between nodes both obeying 802.11s and otherwise, may be required. This is especially likely if a longer-range lower-bandwidth service is deployed to minimize mesh dead zones, e.g. GSM routing based on OpenBTS.
   A switched mesh node uses separate access and multiple mesh backhaul radios.
  
  There are three distinct types of configuration of wireless mesh networking products in the market today:
  
  BULLET::::- "single radio shared mesh" - in the first type one radio provides both backhaul (packet relaying) and client services (access to a laptop).
  
  BULLET::::- "dual radio shared mesh" - in the second type one radio relays packets over multiple hops while another provides client access. This significantly improves backhaul bandwidth and latency.
   The 2012 release of the 802.11 specification (802.11-2012) directly incorporates Mesh Routing functionality. The IEEE page for 802.11s lists that specification as superseded.
  
  Section::::802.11 mesh architecture.
  
  An 802.11s wireless mesh network device is labelled as Mesh Station (mesh STA), or simply an ad hoc node. Mesh STAs form mesh links with one another, over which mesh paths can be established using an ad hoc mobile routing protocol. A key aspect of this architecture is the presence of multi-hop wireless links and routing of packets through other nodes towards the destination nodes.
  
  Section::::802.11 mesh architecture.:Routing protocols.
   Mesh networks take their name from the topology of the resultant network. In a fully connected mesh, each node is connected to every other node, forming a "mesh". A partial mesh, by contrast, has a topology in which some nodes are not connected to others, although this term is seldom in use. Wireless ad hoc networks can take the form of a mesh networks or others. A wireless ad hoc network does not have fixed topology, and its connectivity among nodes is totally dependent on the behavior of the devices, their mobility patterns, distance with each other, etc. Hence, wireless mesh networks are a particular type of wireless ad hoc networks, with special emphasis on the resultant network topology. While some wireless mesh networks (particularly those within a home) have relatively infrequent mobility and thus infrequent link breaks, other more mobile mesh networks require frequent routing adjustments to account for lost links. Google Home, Google Wi-Fi, and Google OnHub all support Wi-Fi mesh (i.e., Wi-Fi ad hoc) networking. Apple's AirPort allows the formation of wireless mesh networks at home, connecting various Wi-Fi devices together and providing good wireless coverage and connectivity at home.
   To allow for redundancy you will connect each ethernetport0 interface of each RP to a port on the first FC-FE-22 and each interface 1 to the second SC-FE-22. And to allow for communication between the two Sc-FE-22 modules (creating a mesh-network) you connect port 22 of each SC-FE-22 to each other. In a dual SFC each SC-FE-22 has a direct (full mesh) link to all 3 other SC-FE-22 and in a 4 SFC system you also create a full-mesh network between all FC-FE-22 modules.
   Wireless mesh radio networks were originally developed for military applications, such that every node could dynamically serve as a router for every other node. In that way, even in the event of a failure of some nodes, the remaining nodes could continue to communicate with each other, and, if necessary, to serve as uplinks for the other nodes.
   A mesh network whose nodes are all connected to each other is a fully connected network. Fully connected wired networks have the advantages of security and reliability: problems in a cable affect only the two nodes attached to it. However, in such networks, the number of cables, and therefore the cost, goes up rapidly as the number of nodes increases.
  
  Section::::Wired mesh.
  
  Shortest path bridging allows Ethernet switches to be connected in a mesh topology, and it allows for all paths to be active.
  
  Section::::Wired mesh.:Development history.
   Wireless mesh architecture is a first step towards providing cost effective and low mobility over a specific coverage area. Wireless mesh infrastructure is, in effect, a network of routers minus the cabling between nodes. It is built of peer radio devices that do not have to be cabled to a wired port like traditional WLAN access points (AP) do. Mesh infrastructure carries data over large distances by splitting the distance into a series of short hops. Intermediate nodes not only boost the signal, but cooperatively pass data from point A to point B by making forwarding decisions based on their knowledge of the network, i.e. perform routing by first deriving the topology of the network.
   Meshes are often created in serial on workstations, even when subsequent calculations over the mesh will be done in parallel on super-computers. This is both because of the limitation that most mesh generators are interactive, and because mesh generation runtime is typically insignificant compared to solver time. However, if the mesh is too large to fit in the memory of a single serial machine, or the mesh must be changed (adapted) during the simulation, meshing is done in parallel.
  
  Section::::Terminology.:Types of Meshes.
  
  See also Types of mesh.
  
  Section::::Terminology.:Types of Meshes.:Cell Topology.
   BULLET::::- Google Home, Google Wi-Fi, and Google OnHub all support Wi-Fi mesh networking.
  
  BULLET::::- In rural Catalonia, Guifi.net was developed in 2004 as a response to the lack of broadband Internet, where commercial Internet providers weren't providing a connection or a very poor one. Nowadays with more than 30,000 nodes it is only halfway a fully connected network, but following a peer to peer agreement it remained an open, free and neutral network with extensive redundancy.
   Mesh clients are often laptops, cell phones, and other wireless devices. Mesh routers forward traffic to and from the gateways, which may, but need not, be connected to the Internet. The coverage area of all radio nodes working as a single network is sometimes called a mesh cloud. Access to this mesh cloud depends on the radio nodes working together to create a radio network. A mesh network is reliable and offers redundancy. When one node can no longer operate, the rest of the nodes can still communicate with each other, directly or through one or more intermediate nodes. Wireless mesh networks can self form and self heal. Wireless mesh networks work with different wireless technologies including 802.11, 802.15, 802.16, cellular technologies and need not be restricted to any one technology or protocol. See also mesh networking.
   BULLET::::- SMesh is an 802.11 multi-hop wireless mesh network developed by the Distributed System and Networks Lab at Johns Hopkins University. A fast handoff scheme allows mobile clients to roam in the network without interruption in connectivity, a feature suitable for real-time applications, such as VoIP.
  
  BULLET::::- Many mesh networks operate across multiple radio bands. For example, Firetide and Wave Relay mesh networks have the option to communicate node to node on 5.2 GHz or 5.8 GHz, but communicate node to client on 2.4 GHz (802.11). This is accomplished using software-defined radio (SDR).
   Wireless mesh networks is a relatively "stable-topology" network except for the occasional failure of nodes or addition of new nodes. The path of traffic, being aggregated from a large number of end users, changes infrequently. Practically all the traffic in an infrastructure mesh network is either forwarded to or from a gateway, while in wireless ad hoc networks or client mesh networks the traffic flows between arbitrary pairs of nodes.
  
  If rate of mobility among nodes are high, i.e., link breaks happen frequently, wireless mesh networks start to break down and have low communication performance.
  
  Section::::History.:Management.
   Section::::Traditional structure.
   In a service mesh, the service instances and their sidecar proxies are said to make up the data plane, which includes not only data management but also request processing and response. The service mesh also includes a control plane for managing the interaction between services, mediated by their sidecar proxies. There are several options for service mesh architecture: Istio (a joint project among Google, IBM, and Lyft), Linkerd (CNCF project led by Buoyant) and others.
  
  Section::::Criticism.
  
  The microservices approach is subject to criticism for a number of issues:
  
  BULLET::::- Services form information barriers.
   computation can converge and delivery of data to their destinations can occur. Hence, this is a low-mobility centralized form of wireless ad hoc network. Also, because it sometimes relies on static nodes to act as gateways, it is not a truly all-wireless ad hoc network.
  
raw_presuppositions: Mesh WiFi systems are the same as a single router with WiFi extenders.
raw_corrections: WiFi Mesh systems more closely resemble enterprise WiFi systems, in which a single device controls all of the wireless access points and it creates one single network.