So, I was recently introduced to Meshtastic by someone in a regional discord; It's an interesting concept. Basically, it's a comm network stack that is cheap, (relatively) easy to set up, and robust that doesn't rely on the internet, cell towers, POTS, etc.. It's fully decentralized, too, and doesn't even require an operators license to utilize.
If you want a quick getting-started guide, I recommend this video:
Now, if you're hardcore geek and want the full tech details, here's the official Meshtastic documentation (warning to non-hardware/radio-nerds: This is dense reading).
Anyway, after some cursory chat with the folks on Discord about this, I'd like to see if we can get some strategy discussion going here at some point for a robust implementation. The goal with the discussion here is to flesh out strategy, onboarding, and use-cases.
Right now I personally am leaning towards a SHTF emergency network, but the best part about it is given that it's pretty locally-focused AND cheap, you could theoretically set up multiple Meshtastic networks pretty easily for different use-cases as you might need for the region.
As an example, a larger city in an area frequently being targeted by ICE could coordinate communication and warnings via the encrypted implementation between trusted nodes.
Or, areas prone to frequent loss of critical infrastructure services (power, internet etc) could set up a highly-redundant network for emergency relief coordination.
Ultimately, we want these ideas shared here so anybody can get ideas for their own implementations in their area.
If you want a quick getting-started guide, I recommend this video:
Now, if you're hardcore geek and want the full tech details, here's the official Meshtastic documentation (warning to non-hardware/radio-nerds: This is dense reading).
Anyway, after some cursory chat with the folks on Discord about this, I'd like to see if we can get some strategy discussion going here at some point for a robust implementation. The goal with the discussion here is to flesh out strategy, onboarding, and use-cases.
Right now I personally am leaning towards a SHTF emergency network, but the best part about it is given that it's pretty locally-focused AND cheap, you could theoretically set up multiple Meshtastic networks pretty easily for different use-cases as you might need for the region.
As an example, a larger city in an area frequently being targeted by ICE could coordinate communication and warnings via the encrypted implementation between trusted nodes.
Or, areas prone to frequent loss of critical infrastructure services (power, internet etc) could set up a highly-redundant network for emergency relief coordination.
Ultimately, we want these ideas shared here so anybody can get ideas for their own implementations in their area.