Mesh Potato prototype
The Mesh Potato is a new device for providing low-cost telephony and Internet in areas where alternative access either doesn’t exist or is too expensive. It is a marriage of a low-cost wireless access point (AP) capable of running a mesh networking protocol with an Analog Telephony Adapter (ATA). Wireless APs such as the Meraki or OpenMesh (Accton Mini-router) APs are rapidly gaining in popularity due to their low-cost, relative robustness, and ease of installation. Adding the ability to plug an ordinary telephone into a device like an OpenMesh AP opens up very interesting possibilities.
Here is the story of how the idea of the Mesh Potato came about.
Mock-up of production version of Mesh Potato
The first prototypes (pictured at right) of the Mesh Potato were built in June of 2009, almost exactly a year after the Mesh Potato concept was conceived of. We will be trialling an additional 100 Mesh Potatoes before the end of 2009 and expect to have full production versions commercially available by Q1 2010. My “artist’s impression” of what the Mesh Potato will ultimately look like can be found at the left.
Have a look at the wiki for more details.
