METROMESH ARCHITECTURE

MetroMesh is a network architecture, based upon the Tropos System Architecture, for building Smart Cities.  Smart Cities utilize MetroMesh to build metro-area wireless broadband networks for municipal applications utilizing open-standard radios and IP communications. A common physical infrastructure can be leveraged to support multiple municipal applications including Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), video surveillance and public safety access. The foundation for the MetroMesh network architecture is field-proven technology that includes Tropos’ outdoor optimized routers; the patented Tropos Mesh OS built from the ground-up for large scale, mission critical outdoor network deployments; and a carrier-class centralized management and control system. Building on the Tropos System Architecture, MetroMesh is a highly resilient, scalable, high performance, and secure network architecture that seamlessly extends municipal enterprise networks and systems from the office out into the field.

The MetroMesh network architecture for metro-scale mesh networks provides several benefits:

• Highly resilient: To support mission-critical public safety applications, the network needs to be designed for high resiliency, with multiple redundant communications pathways to ensure that there is no single point of failure. In addition to Tropos’ highly resilient mesh architecture, the ability to leverage both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands and to fail over between them helps ensure that localized interference on any one frequency band can be avoided. Dynamic channel selection, adaptive noise immunity and other advanced RF resource management techniques provide added resiliency.
• Multi-use network: Municipal networks commonly support multiple applications and user groups. For example, the same physical infrastructure can be leveraged for applications such as public safety and ITS. Tropos’ multi-use feature set includes the ability to create multiple virtual networks, each with their own QoS and security specifications, and complete traffic segregation between applications and user groups.
• Secure: The network needs to be designed to support secure access. Tropos multi-use feature set allows for multiple virtual networks over a single physical infrastructure with traffic segregation across applications and user groups. 802.11i-based link-layer security provides authentication using RADIUS and EAP and AES encryption for all control and data traffic.
• High capacity for demanding applications: High-bandwidth applications such as video surveillance and mobile video require the network to be engineered to provide high capacity. This often translates to higher node densities, the use of fiber backhaul, use of Tropos multi-radio products (5320, 6320, 7320, 9532, 9422) in the network design, etc.
• Application QoS: A municipal network that is being shared by multiple applications and user groups needs to be designed with application QoS to ensure that traffic for latency-sensitive mission-critical applications are prioritized relative to latency-insensitive communications such as metering data. Tropos routers support IETF (DiffServ) and IEEE (802.11e, 802.1p, 802.1q) QoS standards in addition to proprietary mesh extensions to deliver application-based QoS.
• Flexible network evolution: Municipal network designs typically evolve over time, as applications are added to the network. For example, a network that is designed initially for AMI can start out with a router density as low as 1 per square mile and evolve to densities of a 5-10 per square mile as applications like mobile public safety are added to the network, eventually reaching densities of 30+ per square mile when providing mobile public access. Tropos’ high power radios along with the ability to mesh over 2.4 GHz as well as 5 GHz provide the flexibility to support this network evolution.
• 4.9 GHz support for public safety applications: Tropos 9532 (fixed) and 9422 (mobile) routers provide 2.4 GHz and 4.9 GHz connectivity options for public safety applications, with the ability to fail over between 2.4 and 4.9 GHz frequency bands
• Mobile access: Municipal networks with a public access component are typically designed with higher router densities (30+ per square mile) to support low power mobile Wi-Fi devices.