Hi Volters!
Wondering if anyone else has experience with goTenna mesh network — to be used in lieu of mobile networks — and if so, the good, the bad, the ugly?
I ordered a set, just finished setting them up (in Orange County, SoCal, holla!) and curious to see is this the way of a new decentralized mobile network future, or a concept that looked awesome on paper but in practice will die off.
This seems like it would be great when you have lots and lots of them out there. It’s a €199 buy-in though. I don’t think I’ll be able to reach that 4 mile maximum.
Yeah it’s not cheap. Otoh while I’m not a prepper by any means, living in an earthquake prone region I’m trying to take the basic steps for “survival” should the big one hit.
I could get one. Then you could let me know when you fly over Kansas. Probably have to make the plane stall a bit though. Or circle around. I’m sure the airline won’t mind. 
Looks to be fairly useless at the moment in an area that could in theory benefit from it. 
Yeah, and even when you have users around you, depending on the terrain/surroundings, range has been reported not great, <1-2 miles in many cases. So in order for this network to really work requires hundreds of nodes in close proximity, preferably majority plugged into an outlet, and not like mine which is shut down until I need it. So unless you’re plugged into a solar panel, most of the nodes are probably dormant. So yeah, I prob should’ve done more research on this…
They are using frequencies in the 150-154 MHz range, which is a bad choice both because they require line-of-sight communication and are illegal to use in most countries (e.g. all of Europe except Germany). Also the interesting services require a 30$/year subscription even though the users basically provide all the infrastructure.