Koreans are safer from dangerous weather conditions now that
the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) has installed wireless mesh networks
to monitor islands off the country’s southern coast. The mesh networks connect
remote weather forecasting equipment and video cameras to the KMA's network.
The mesh networks are a good solution for connecting outdoor
weather sensors to the main network because they can be used over large areas
of land and water, according to Korea Telecom, which installed them.
Traditional network cabling would be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive
to install in these outlying islands and coastal areas.
The network connects equipment on Jeju and Woo islands that
monitors climate trends for scientific research and maintains early warnings for
Korean islanders. It can also be extended for other applications such as video
monitoring of forest fires and providing low-cost mobile VoIP services to
remote areas and offshore locations.
The system consists of small devices called mesh nodes that
automatically link to each other to form the wireless network. The mesh nodes,
made by Firetide, have Ethernet ports that allow any wired
networking device, including video cameras and weather sensors, to operate
wirelessly over the mesh.
