A friend of mine has Meraki through a provider here in CA, and I'm curious what others think about them and their niche (particularly those who have found a great niche).
Personally, I don't see a solution like this taking off unless there is the right demographic (poorer areas, underserved areas, certain campuses, etc). In main areas covered by 3G and affordable cable / DSL (e.g. $15/mo DSL Extreme), there seems to be little reason to really build out something like Meraki. I could see it in, say, an apartment complex, particularly ones where people are moving in and out and just want temporary access. In these cases, there is a way for the complex to at least pay for part of a wireless solution for their tenants. Another issue I see with Meraki is that for billing, it has to be an open SSID. What about problems such as Firesheep? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firesheep Sure, the credit card info is encrypted, but once someone attaches to the AP, then all of their traffic is clear text. I don't see anything in Meraki (at least the GUI I saw tonight) that prevents this sort of thing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
