MeshStash™ Technology from Mo-DV™
With the MeshStash technology, traditional Wi-Fi access points are replaced with Special Network Devices (SND) that includes transcievers to form side mesh networks, content cache memory, and proxy software to serve content from the MeshStash network.
Businesses and consumers install these SNDs as they would a traditional Wi-Fi access point and connnect it to the modem which is connnected to the ISP. When the SND is physically placed within range of another SND is connects via the sideband signal to form the MeshStash network. This connection can be ad-hoc (automatically peer-to-peer) or controled by the ISP.
When a user, connected to the traditional Wi-Fi signal of the SND, makes a content request the SND first queries the MeshStash network to see if that content can be found locally. If not, the request is sent to the ISP, the content is downloaded to the user, and cached in the SND. Then subsequent requests for the same content by any user connected to any SND in the MeshStash network can access that content locally.
Random MeshStash-ready Wi-Fi access points automatically connect to create a neighborhood content cache. Depending
on the density of devices and the frequency of common content access, the viewing experience of all those in the
neighborhood improves. Interestingly, this quality of experience improvement is greatest during peak viewing times,
counter to the experience of today’s cable-based ISP customers.
In some scenarios, this improvement can be achieved without ISP direction or intervention. The customer simply buys a MeshStash-ready Wi-Fi access point. This leads to product differentiation in the now commodity modem/router/Wi-Fi access point marketplace.
By providing MeshStash-ready Wi-Fi access points to its customers and cleverly curating the content caching on
the resulting MeshStash, an ISP can significantly reduce its bandwidth demand during peak periods.
Currently ISPs, invest heavily to support peak demand from its customers. This demand is far greater than the lowest demand, or even the average demand, over the course of the day. With customer installed MeshStashs, the ISPs can cache or preload popular content. For live streaming, such as sporting events, the MeshStash can server several customers with one download interaction from the ISP.
Most encouraging from the point of view of the ISP, the investment is low because the customer pays traditionally pays for the hardware.
For interactive video (e.g. video conferencing, gaming), low latency is the key to a good user experience. For
some of interactive video companies, reducing latency is so important that they invest heavily on CDN, Point of
Presence in the ISP, special video coding, and other techniques.
For a company using video conferencing over a private network, MeshStash technology could reduce both the latency and the bandwidth demand. Also, for gaming, MeshStash technology may reduce latency if there is a large enough network with enough common content. In both of these cases, it might behoove the interactive video providers to invest in MeshStash technology for their primary customers.
A MeshStash can be pre-loaded with content by content providers for the best user experience. Content streaming
services such as Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix all have queues for their users preferences. These queues are good
predictors of what the user will want to watch next. By pre-loading content from the queue onto the user’s
MeshStash, the best user experience can be achieved even at peak viewing times when bandwidth demands are high.
With MeshStash content providers can get closer to their customers both technically and in terms of the quality of experience.
Interestingly, a MeshStash can also behave as the key element in Mo-DV's sister technology Mo2Go™ Speedspot™.
The Mo2Go system caches content in Speedspot devices with Wi-Fi signals and connects automatically to devices
running the Mo2Go Client applicaiton. This application downloads the desired content directly and quickly to
the Mo2Go Client device. A MeshStash network can behave as a Mo2Go Speedspot, automatically connecting and
downloading cached content. MeshStash network devices can be pre-loaded with content for this purpose.
(as well
as other purposes) So all the Speedspot business models are
relevant for MeshStash technology.
The value of the technology can be determined directly from simulating the content flow over a reasonable network. Neither the network nor the content flow over that network need be artificial. As part of the development of this technology, Mo-DV is building a number of simulators that can use real content traffic in real neighborhoods to determine the reduction in traffic and speedup. Here is a description of the simulators being built.
This simulator can explore different caching models and off-peak pre-loading of content. It is currently complete using a simple "oldest content" caching model.
(It is plausible that the sideband signal is a different protocol and spectrum that has fewer conflicts with Wi-Fi.)