Sick. Meshcore nodes are sprouting up around Canada at a fast rate. View the live map here.
https://meshcore.co.uk/map.html
Non-Geek explainer of Meshcore/Meshtastic, and why it's so important:
Meshcore/Meshtastic are decentralized nodes that use the LoRa band, (Low power, Long Range). This is a free, unlicensed frequency that anyone can use openly. It has a range of like 5km in cities, and maybe 30km in rural. But some people have beamed it hundreds of km.
Think of it like a digital CB radio. Kinda.
As the name suggests, Mesh LoRa nodes communicate with each other, forming a large ad-hoc network. You can send messages over it long distances, bouncing from node to node thru the network. Here's why it matters:
There's no ISP (Rogers, Bell, Cogeco, Telus etc).
It's fully decentralized.
There's no fees, no internet company, no centralized authorities watching your traffic. So if the cell or internet network goes down, Meshcore doesn't. It's backup communications in emergencies. And more.
But, there's a big limitation. LoRa can only handle like 10kbps. So it won't handle full internet (streaming etc). But it can handle messages since they're tiny data. Most importantly, it's just a stepping stone to a fully decentralized internet on protocols that do have high bandwidth. Giving full control to the people, and not big tech.
BitChat--which I posted above--ties into all of this, because BitChat is working on a direct P2P chat. It could logically adapt into LoRa, or other protocols with longer range (Bluetooth is only like 50 feet). All in all, decentralized open communications are extremely important for sovereignty, resilience, and freedom.
