Hi all.
Background
Here on the East Coast of Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada) we're having a bitch of the time setting up AREDN mesh links because of the dense rainforest that we live in. We've got one mountain top node on Mt Benson (near Nanaimo, BC) and we're planning our next mountain top node on Mt Cokely (between Parksville and Port Alberni, BC).
While we can make good quality connections to Mt Benson from many surface locations in the Oceanside area, most of these locations are not anywhere near one of our EOCs and most evacuation centres (the primary clients of ham emergency communications) because they are buried deeply in trees. We are exploring daisy chaining MicroTik SXTs from the client locations to quality connections to mountain top nodes as well as hydrogen-filled heliostats or drones at the client locations, to facilitate direct links to the mountain top backbone. Unfortunately, these options get expensive really fast.
As well, Emergency Management BC, the Provincial Government agency responsible, has put Ham oriented emergency communicators on notice that they do not want to use low bandwidth data coms and Ham Radio message formats for emergency communications. Rather they want their serviced facilities, the same EOCs and Evacuation/Emergency Support Services (ESS) supported by Hams, to use TCP/IP forms and data on the EMBC website and they want full internet style utility in an emergency when commercial ISP services might be down.
As well, because of protection of personal information issues (FOIP), turning on encryption (use HTTPS) during emergency use of AREDN may be necessary.
My Questions ( 4 parts)
1. Can a StarLink terminal interlink with an AREDN mesh and would this be a violation of the StarLink user agreement?
2. Given our tree blocking situation, is StarLink, or other future space-based TCP-IP uplink/downlink service, the more reasonable solution to servicing our clients?
3. If a StarLink Terminal at a client site is also blocked by trees, can StarLink and AREDN interconnect to use AREDN Mesh to link a non-collocated StarLink terminal (placed to enable data communications with satellites) to a client agency or agencies, and
4. Can StarLink be used as a hub to which AREDN equipment is used to set up a local mesh and what limiting factors are at play?
Conclusion
Ukraine is clearly demonstrating the potential of StarLink in a disaster/war situation as well as the possibility that a commercial operator could brick the system on short notice.
Notwithstanding the latter, given the client's need for high speed and bandwidth emergency communications in our location, is StarLink/AREDN integration the best solution for sites that cannot be serviced solely by AREDN and what limitations, aside from ongoing costs, should we anticipate?
Any assistance is appreciated.
You are here
StarLink/AREDN Integration
Mon, 12/26/2022 - 20:34
#1
StarLink/AREDN Integration
Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer
1. Can a StarLink terminal interlink with an AREDN mesh and would this be a violation of the StarLink user agreement?
This would be the same as connecting it to your home network and using the internet uplink.
https://docs.arednmesh.org/en/3.22.12.0/arednHow-toGuides/home-router-co...
You'd make tunnels to other AREDN mesh nodes as needed to augment the RF links.
2. Given our tree blocking situation, is StarLink, or other future space-based TCP-IP uplink/downlink service, the more reasonable solution to servicing our clients?
Well, you aren't really using an AREDN mesh in that case but if you had some patches of mesh that worked and you want to interconnect them with tunnels this would work.
3. If a StarLink Terminal at a client site is also blocked by trees, can StarLink and AREDN interconnect to use AREDN Mesh to link a non-collocated StarLink terminal (placed to enable data communications with satellites) to a client agency or agencies, and
If you had a site that was dual-homed AREDN and Starlink, and all the clients and services were on the mesh, the mesh could be the primary interconnect and a tunnel over starlink could be the backup (or reversed if it suits you).
4. Can StarLink be used as a hub to which AREDN equipment is used to set up a local mesh and what limiting factors are at play?
Starlink is just another internet connection. So, you could have a "hub" that various mesh networks are tunneled to. You could have a server in AWS that you use as a tunnel server and have your devices connect to it. I think that's not the "official" way here and someone may come along and shoo me away for putting it like that, but it's possible. I think the idea is that our meshes are all supposed to connect to *the* AREDN mesh but you don't really have to.