[Mep-dev] A Simple "What If?"

[Art Botterell]

I was headed down the IP-stack rabbit hole of MAC addressing and such  
when a simple, ham-style expedient occurred to me:  "What if we simply  
used transverters to convert ordinary WiFi gear to MEP frequencies,  
power levels, etc.?"

Wouldn't that handle all sorts of issues for us about IP capability,  
media access control, authentication, discovery and so on in a totally  
standards-based and... say it with me... CHEAP way of doing things?   
And also provide congruence with the hams who are using 2.4GHz gear in  
a ham... which is to say, higher power... mode?

Even better, it would let our hardware specialists focus on a fairly  
tractable RF hardware problem, without needing to reinvent the wheel  
on the software or modulation sides.  (And meanwhile us software types  
could focus on cool applications... like DTN maybe... over a well- 
understood and stable transport.)

Admittedly it would create a minimum bandwidth requirement for MEP  
gear, but not a terribly hard one, I don't think.

Someone want to talk me down from this?  I'm not married to it, but it  
does seem like it might be a convenient place to start.

- Art KD6O