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From "happy hacking" to "screw you" - the story of Meraki
I've been following the development of mesh wifi technology for several years now. From the moment I first grokked what was going on with it, it struck me as a great disruptive technology. One of the most successful early projects, and one that I followed with a great deal of interest was MIT's Roofnet project - an implementation of commodity hardware and open source software, built on Linux, which provides wifi coverage for MIT's campus.
In 2006 a spin-off company named Meraki was formed to develop and commercialize the MIT Roofnet technology. At the time I was on the board of the Vancouver Community Network and had been championing more development of wireless technology. We immediately ordered 9 of the first beta units to try out. The technology was cheap ($50/unit) and it worked but what prevented us from going any further with it was the pricing model that they decided to adopt - $5/node/month for access to the "dashboard" - the real-time monitoring software that they were developing for managing the networks. We decided that this cost was prohibitive for our purposes and the Merakis were shelved.
In September of 2007 I heard about a group of Vancouver community wifi enthusiasts who were getting together with the goal of setting up community wifi in Canada's poorest neighbourhood. I came out to a meeting and invited along some people whom I know are interested in any project that is about bridging the digital divide. The technology that was trumpeted at that meeting was Meraki. Since my previous brush with them they had changed their pricing structure and now they would let you run a free network (with free access to their dashboard) or a subscription (paid) network for 10% of your charges. We (the group, which came to call itself "FreeTheNet") were unanimous that the free option was what we wanted to do and we quickly began building out a public network.
In October Meraki announced that they were changing their pricing model (yet again) and that they would be vastly raising the costs of their hardware (tripling, in fact). I remember going to their website to learn more about what they were doing and their new marketing slogan was something like "Build your business using exciting new technology where the rules of the game keep changing" How ironic; I wish I'd kept a screenshot of that! Under their new system there was no way that we could build out the network we envisioned. At roughly that point, one of our most experienced hackers said "forget Meraki", we're going to write our own firmware and dashboard and promptly started researching that. By late Novermber he was able to demostrate an open routing firmware called B.A.T.M.A.N. running with a mesh helper inside called RO.B.IN, that provided the same functionality as the Meraki firmware. This could be installed in the commodity Meraki hardware which greeted you with a friendly and encouraging "happy hacking" when you logged into it via the console.
Over December and January he worked on adding features that we wanted to our network to have (and that we had previously been encouraging Meraki to build to improve their system - things like per node custom splash screen, enhancements to the dashboard to improve scalability, etc.) All of this was being tested on Meraki hardware because this is what we had spent our money on back when they supported and encouraged the kind of work we were doing.
Then in February Meraki announced a change to their EULA (End User Licence Agreement) which precluded anyone from changing any of the software that they install on their units. This meant that from that point forward we would be breaking their rules, and maybe the law, by installing our own work on their hardware. Of course this could not be applied retroactively so we were free to continue to work with the hardware that we'd already bought but we intensified our search for alternatives to the Meraki hardware.
Last week I tried installing our firmware on one of the nodes that I manage and failed 5 times in a row before I gave up. Today I learn that my failure is due to the fact that Meraki has automatically updated the software on all of the units (including legacy, such as ours) so that you cannot install a different firmware on it, at all.
So... in the course of six months Meraki has gone from "happy hacking - buy our equipment and use it to help poor people access the net" to "pay three times as much for our hardware and we'll install whatever we want on it, whenever we want, and you can't look under the hood to see what it's doing or install your own software on it."
Thanks Meraki.
This is expecially bad form (and probably illegal) given that their stuff was all orginally developed under an open source licence.
Needless to say I now think Meraki are scum and they certainly won't ever, EVER see any of my money again.
In light of the forced firmware up^H^Hdowngrade you experienced, it should come as no surprise to learn that who else but Robert Tappan Morris is a tech adviser to Meraki. Now it all starts to make sense.....
I want to let people know about a petition to the Canadian parliament to protect our IT property rights http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/ We need to have the legally protected right to install software of our own choosing on hardware that we own, including the legally protected right to remove any third party locks. I would love to see someone willing to test the legality of unauthorized (by the owner) software changes. Whether there is a note about this in a contract or not, this is a basic test of tangible property rights. Either you own the hardware, or you don't, and if you don't (IE: the manufacturer retains ownership rights) then this should have been made very clear to you at acquisition (IE: there may be a labellings, fair business practices, Competition Bureau type of complaint). It is possible that the law clinic at http://www.cippic.ca may be able to help. I'm not a lawyer myself (I'm host of http://digital-copyright.ca , etc), so can only offer moral support/promotion/etc. It makes for an interesting story to discuss with members of federal parliament given most of them have no clue what type of nasty things are going on in the marketplace. What isn't legal now might be able to be made illegal if we find a few MPs willing to champion the cause.
I had similar problems with the Meraki's.
I bought 4 of them as part of the Summer Beta 2 and the automatic updates basically made the units unusable for the purpose. Suddenly shaping didn't work anymore as it was set out initially etc.
The problem I had with this was, that there was no changelog to track changes, support answered one out of 5 times and never delivered a solution.
Essentially, a product without support is unusuable for any business.
We're running a Mikrotik based network (40+ basestation, 700+ customers) in rural areas, and Mikrotik's support is exceptional. The Meraki's where thought as add-on for urban areas, but with the way Meraki treats their customers in regards to support etc., they aren't a viable option.
Even for a community network, that I'm involved in, they weren't usable with the constant change of behaviour.
In regards to flashing, you can always whipe them clear from a bios/serial point of view and install DD-WRT etc. That's what I ended up doing with the ones that didn't go death.
/Martin
I love all the little GPLv3ers on this thread. What's to stop someone from reading GPLv3 code, and simply rewriting it as thier own, and GPLv2ing it? Hahahaha.... Are you going to DRM your precious GPLv3 code, to keep it pure from dirty, repacious capitalists?! Ah hahahaha....
I found FreeTheNet in in Vancouver when I has visiting (from the UK) last week. Now I know what it is.
Good luck for your future projects!! - I always loved the idea of Free/Open acess to the information!!
... the FSF keeps talking about "Tivoization"
This is the kind of thing that GPLv3 is designed to prevent.
Of course, this particular case has some illegal activites and as such can be pulled up.
Just another example of why you should not call the FSF "freedom-fanatics". They make _business_ sense.
If you don't side with freedom fanatics, you have to bear with businessmen's antics and absence of ethics.
GPLv3-ing your code helps in these cases. And these cases are only going to increase with time when GPLv2 code becomes the defacto standard in the years to come.
I can hear RMS say: "I told you so."
1) Does the automatic update constitute trespass & is it illegal in Canada
2) Is any of their system build on GPL'd software
Thanks for the wonderful article and unfortunately sad story. Best of luck to the Batman team.
Has any thought been given to trying to merge with openwrt? There certainly must be a lot of configuration steps that override openwrt defaults, but I dont see any reason these couldnt be put into a package. The advantage is you get the ever growing platform support, and can focus on the wireless.
Michael Burmeister-Brown set up Netequality in Portland, OR., and in the past set up Meraki meshes in low income housing. His website was www.netequality.org and there are many links to Meraki on it.
Michael's new site is www.netequality.net, with a $50 or $40@20 open source meshable Accton access point. I don't know the full story, but it appears that he is maintaining his relationship to Meraki in support of half a dozen existing installations, while focusing future work on the open-mesh networks.
It would be interesting to hear what Michael has to say. I suspect he would be glad to cooperate with open-mesh projects in Vancouver and elsewhere. Contact info in the whois for netequality.net .
Amongst the anonymous comments about Meraki, the most frustrating are those revolving around money. It appears Meraki made a mistake and assumed people would purchase service plans along with their hardware. There are far too many business cases out there which show that, given the opportunity, people will take advantage of a deal when given a chance.
That said, once they realized their mistake and noticed that their loss-leader was turning into a loss, they should have COMMUNICATED that THEY MADE A MISTAKE, how and why they made the mistake, and how they intend to resolve the issue. This should not have been done behind closed doors with a sudden announcement that they would be raising prices, without adequate explanation.
It isn't Meraki's duty to provide hardware at a loss, but it is their responsibility to everyone invested, in the company (Sequoia) and in their products/services (customers), to be fair and clear in their communications with their motives and future intentions.
All that was required was a communique stating, "In the past we sold hardware at a loss without bundling services, under the expectation that people would need those services to make use of the hardware. Enterprising hackers undercut our business plan, so today we must
announce that we will sell the hardware at a moderately higher rate, or at the same low price when bundled with a three-year service commitment."
There, now was that so hard?
And if I'm wrong about their motives. . .then they should correct me openly with "the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth."
Meraki's biggest problem is communication with their customers, be it support or be it communicating changes to them. It's non existant.
In regards to hardware at a loss, that can't be. You can buy Mikrotik boards incl. license, that are the same CPU platform, better hardware, incl. software license for under $90 retail (example: http://www.wisp-router.com/wri/itemdesc.asp?ic=RB133&eq=&Tp=)
$50 for the indoor hardware they were selling wasn't cheap at all.
The Fonero, which is essentially the same hardware with a few modifications, goes for $49 retail.
If they can't compete with that, they must have bought badly in.
/Martin
your comments are excellent.
the only remaining issue is automatically updating the guys firmware, which was a greviously bone-headed move.
So, go use Open-Mesh. $50/node (cheaper in quantity)
http://www.open-mesh.com/
Thanx for the advice. It was absolutely worth every penny spent on it.
I wonder if you might wish to address the issues raised in the article, since you are here anyway.
I originally purchased 4 outdoor and 4 indoor meraki units for creating a freenet in the small downtown area for my town. I just happened to purchase half of the equipment in September 2007, then the terms changed and I purchased the rest of them in November under the legacy terms. I couldn't believe the price increase. I could see maybe an extra $25, but 3x the price was way out of line. At that point I was already locked in. Nobody was offering anything even remotely similar at that price point. We aren't willing to purchase the standard units due to the ad-bar and inability to interoperate with our legacy nodes and now we have to look for alternative for expanding the network. Hopefully open-mesh.com comes out with some outdoor units soon. I see they released their indoor units this month.
Try http://www.open-mesh.com for an alternative from the guy who built the meraki dashboard. He was also involved in the netequality program that was using meraki nodes before the EULA change. The routers ar Accton based so it is likely that is is very close to the same hrdware as Meraki and Fon. Cheap too at $49 and $799 for 20.
Cheers
Diarmuid
www.lukulu.com
Bluetooth Marketing Solutions
Hello Everyone. I have a few issues with this particular "article" as it were, and although I think the points have been stated previously, perhaps they were overlooked for lack of tactfullness in how they were produced. So, the facts:
So far, I have yet to see anything that is out of the ordinary. Beta programs for almost every piece of software out in the world is usually free, and then coming out of beta costs money and beta testers are either compensated / offered discounts for their time and energy. And as far as utilizing their hardware for stuff other than their firmware... there are plenty of reasons to not allow that, since people (such as yourselves) could in theory write firmware, flash it to their hardware, sell it to clients, and then abscond with the money, and the people who are left to support it will look at the hardware, and read Meraki, and expect support from the manufacturer. I've seen it happen over and over again, so don't discount that shady businesss practices happen all over.
So lets go over some numbers here. Tropos networks, the premiere citi wi-fi mesh solution, will cost $68000 US dollars to cover 1 square mile. This does not include any of the recurring annual fees that their controller software has for updates. I recently spec'd a Cisco wireless solution (granted, not mesh, but would be in a bridged solution to cover a campus, so it is similar), came out to about $180,000 for the access points and controlling backend software from Proxim. Meraki, to cover said campus, is around $88,000 at the carrier level, which includes 5 years of the access to dashboard.
I believe what a lot of you are failing to understand is that in order to compete in the spaces Meraki wants to compete in, they are going to need to offer enterprise level items (802.1X which is coming in June, AES encryption, etc.). The development for these kinds of features requires a lot of time and hours invested by Meraki. Also, if they are aiming for city / municipal coverage, there is a LOT of time that needs to be invested to bullet-proof their firmware and hardware in order to attract the ISP attention that they want. The reason people spend over 1,000 / unit on Tropos is because it is rugged, industry proven mesh network solutions that have MTBFs of over 200,000 hours. I would doubt the Meraki's would be able to hold a candle to that. Granted, you just "toss a new one" into the mix.... but you then have to pay for someone to go out to the site, pay for that person to set it up, pay the gas in the truck, and have to field all the helpdesk calls about the lack of coverage.
So, while I'm not a champion for Meraki's solution, and I am a big fan of open source, I understand why they did what they did (google and seqoia expect returns on their investments), and definetly see it as an excellent tool for the small-to-medium level IT system integrators to utilize. Proxim controllers alone cost almost $1,000 per year in software maintenance agreements. That price goes up as you add nodes.
In closing, please do your research.
I have not spent much time on the Meraki site recently but I used to like this company based on what they wrote about helping people getting connected. I don't know how this type of mission statement jives with the actions of the company today. Excuse me for being naive, I believed the talk and then now it appears they are just a company out to "compete" against other companies instead of providing a means to people who wouldn't otherwise be connected. Granted they have to pay bills but just the number of changes alone seems to indicate there is something strange about how they intend to best serve people..
Me thinks he works for them so he would say that.
This seems to be a common misconception. Meraki came out of beta in February of 2007, and continued to sell hardware for $50. That was "the model". Then, they changed the model, and jumped to $150.
The product wasn't beta at a lower cost, it was released retail product at the lower cost.
-LJ
You have intentionally avoided the Real Issue. Additionally, you are subtly attacking the credibility of the author, this is both uncalled for and malicious.
The Real Issue is the silent firmware changes that cripple existing hardware which was purchased under a different EULA.\
There *are* other similarly-priced options, and even if there were not, the business took a risk selling at a loss, and that is their fault, it is not the problem of anyone else that their risk did not pay off as they would have liked, that's why it is called a risk. In fact, I don't believe it was a risk, seeing as other companies are able to produce similar hardware at a similar price. They got greedy.
Stop astroturfing.
-x
Ahhh an excellent response. So lets start with the top. Yes I am challenging the credibility of the author. That is both my right as a citizen of the free world, and what comments are in fact for .If you roll over and believe everything you see on the internet, well then we have a much larger problem on our hands. There was no malicious intent though... and I would gladly accept a rebuttal with credible facts from the author to disprove my points.
Your second point is an unfortunate point to that "free" economic model that drives capitalism. EULA are subject to change, and any well written EULA will have in it "This agreement is subject to change without notice." While it sucks and I agree with you 100% that it orphans many people, my question was and continues to be how you expect to sell to people with software that is in fact not supported by anyone except yourself? It is not in Meraki's interests to allow people to openly hack their hardware/software. If you recall, Linksys/Cisco had stopped the production of the WRT54G's that were able to be hacked by the open source community. They later restarted production on the "hackable" models, but the support agreements and EULA's for the models that were hackable are different than the non-hack models. Perhaps Meraki will do something similar.
Now, as for risk management, your points are credible. Any and all businesses when they first start out are taking risks. So, please list out some similarly priced options that offer both the level of service that Meraki would give (phone support, firmware upgrades, and similar capbilities). Personally I would love to see and investigate them, because I am always open to new technologies that do the same thing for cheaper. The later reference to the Accton APs / gateways is a good example of hardware for similar price, but you're laying software on top of it that is not enterprise worthy, nor would I deem rugged enough for a municipal wi-fi deployment.
Finally, for anyone who doesn't know what astroturfing is (from wikipedia): Astroturfing in American English is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf.
So you've basically called me a PR person for Meraki? Well, I honestly don't work for them. But I do do my research thoroughly. I've been in contact with Meraki and Tropos and Proxim for my deployment options, which I think is what is lacking on most of the internet blogs... a lack of research. Your comments do not cite any information sources from anywhere credible. My tropos information comes from http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3501321 and has been corroborated elsewhere on the internet. My Proxim information came from an individual bid I had been given from a Proxim dealer.
I look forward to your comments.
>It is not in Meraki's interests to allow people to openly hack their hardware/software.
Actually, it is completely in Meraki's interest to allow hacking.
Mesh networking is a rapidly emerging technology, and Meraki's betting that they've gotten enough of a buy-in to lock in their market. They are wrong.
This in not the 1980s where proprietary tech is the norm. The kind of folks who tend to propel open networking projects actually care about their right to use hardware they've purchased as they see fit. Another hardware vendor will reproduce the functionality of Meraki, if they havn't already, and will profit *because* of the lack of a software lock-in.
Meraki may still be able to milk their existing customer base, but in the long term they will disappear. Misleading your customers when marketing to the communications-savvy is not a good business strategy.
Considering that the Accton units are the same price as the "beta" units- and have the same performance profile, I've a problem believing that the 3x increase in prices is really and honestly justifed by Meraki- furthermore, there was nothing indicating that the devices were leased to me. If I am not using your service, how is it that they can legitimately reflash devices SOLD to me? No matter how you slice it, both smell bad on ice.
It's pretty obvious that someone in Taiwan could produce a commodity blank box which the purchaser can program.
There is nothing special about Meraki hardware. Their competitive advantage doesn't even reside in their firmware -- but resides only in their combination of business services. They should focus on those and stop trying to make profit centers out of their ability to raise capital to ramp up manufacturing.
I agree. I used them early on and tried to stick withthem but their pricing models are just too restrictive and their OSS is poor in comparison to companies like ICOA and Airpath. They defiantley pissed off many in the wifi community.
you guys are ridiculous.. try finding an out of the box plug and play solution like Meraki for anything near their price (Even at the new $100-$150 price point). Tropos, canopy and other such units sell over $1,000+ and offer the same functionality. Stop bitching and complaining!
Yes, they increased their price NOT 3X, but 1.5 times (Outdoor $100->$150, Indoor $50->$100) and it is still a good buy.
Additionally, none of you douchebags ever mention the fact that if you are providing a free network and you do not need to make money on it through running their monetize billing system, you can still obtain their standard level units for the original price point of only $50.
Before you know the entire story don't bash a company and neglect to state all of the facts. The price increase is only for pro level units for people who run for profit networks. The hacking part, however, is sadly true. But there are obviously still options for those people out there, and they are probably better options than Meraki ever was for someone who wanted a truly hackable system free of the Meraki dashboard.
It depends a bit on how much work you want to put in and the scale on which you are building the network. You don't need much. Most embedded computers come with sound (why?) which is most definitely not a requiremet of a rooftop software router. The cheapest motherboard I could find was $64, fully populated. The USB wireless system was $28, and the directional 10dB antenna was $28. That gets us to $120, which is the middle of the listed range. The software needed would be Linux or NetBSD (both free) and a software router such as AODV (there are several dozen free software routers). By using a directional antenna, fewer transmitters are needed to obtain the same coverage. However, the topology gets very interesting as the shortest path is no longer a straight line.
To the comments above there are other solutions I have not seen mentioned here that could be utilized for a possible hardware and/or software solution.
For Example:
Outdoor wireless router with support OLSR mesh from STAROS
This unit likely outperforms the meraki units and it's been used by Wireless ISPs for years:
Here is a tech sheet on them, they start at $110 (single unit).. I would put that against anything Meraki has anytime and probably win.
http://www.staros.com/store/datasheets/Au200-500.pdf
Another example:
Nanostation 2 from Ubiquiti. These cost $79 for an outdoor wireless unit. They don't have mesh support built in but it's a hardware platform that is very cost effective and may only require loading your own mesh software on to it. Ubiquiti is willing to allow people to put their own OS on the hardware as well. These unit do work well in the field.
Here is a reseller that has them:
http://metrix.net/ubiquiti-nanostation-2-p-110.html
Don't get stuck with Meraki, or believe there are not better options. Meraki was passed several years ago by a number of competitors.
As for accusing them (the author/commentors) of being douchbags you sir have shown yourself to be one and an ignorant one at that. Apparently the PRO level has software features that are not available on the lower end units. That is not the case with the competitors, go look for yourself. Vote with your dollar and Meraki will either change it's tune or simply go out of business.
It's 3 times the cost of the earlier beta offering when comparing pro to legacy. The Mini went from $59 to $159, and the Outdoor went from $99 to $199. There has been no price change on the Standard Ad edition.
Also, Meraki forces you to use advertising on it's lowest tier. If you want to provide internet without advertising, or have control over your advertising, you're pretty much screwed that way.
I don't know why are are cheerleading anonymously for Meraki. Do you work there? There are many other options than Meraki, Open-Mesh being one of them. The problem was that Meraki doesn't honor the GPL, which many providers were using as an insurance policy once Meraki goes belly up.
I believe that Meraki is funded by both Sequoia and Google. I think the GPL violation that they are doing by not acknowledging, let alone distributing the GPL with their routers is far more interesting than anything else.
They're not actually violating the GPL, because their mesh code was under the BSD license. All the openwrt stuff that's GPL is up on their site.
Doesn't anyone realize the company would go out of business selling boxes at $50? The WRT54g still cost $60 at Frys, and they have less RAM and flash.
I've been using Meraki for 4 months, and am deploying all over the place. I used Motorola canopy gear earlier, which I bought for $800 per radio and it didn't do mesh, and it was slower.
I don't work for them, but I'm glad they'll be around now that they're making some kind of margin on their products. The open-source guys should stick to buying wrt54s instead of picking on them.
Good grief.
Actually, they are violating the GPL!
The source at http://www.meraki.com/linux is the old firmware. Anyone who wishes, can ssh into their meraki node, poke around and see that in fact they changed OpenWRT since releasing that source code. Also, with every router they are supposed to include the licence.
It's very true that Biswas and co. did licence Roofnet under MIT, so they can close that whenever they want (which they did), but RedBoot, the Kernel and the OpenWrt distro that they chose with modifications has to be included for them to be in compliance with the license.
It doesn't change the fact that they're still able to lock the firmware down, BUT it does mean that their terms of service as far as reverse-engineering their stuff wouldn't hold up in court because it's not their software to begin with.
This is a GPL violation in the wild! They shouldn't have used OpenWRT for their base if they didn't want to follow the GPL, BSD is known to run on the firmware.
As for your comparison, you really should try OpenMesh if you're so impressed with Meraki. Putting all your eggs in one basket is definitely not the way to go.
You just don't understand do you?
They changed the rules, lied, and then retroactively locked out users out of hardware _that_they_already_owned_.
Having the price of hardware change under you, when you have a relationship with a company, is irritating but having that company go and eliminate all ability for you to use their hardware AFTER you have purchased it is unforgivable.
It does not matter if it's illegal or not or abiding a license or not, it's just straight asshat behavior.
It's as if you bought a Dell a bunch of Dell computers to deploy a XP bunch of Dell desktops and then all of a sudden Dell did a firmware update that eliminated the BIOS support for anything other then Vista's bootloader. Even after selling you the boxes with XP on them and offering no explaination or anything like that.
This is the sort of thing that will drive customers to the Koreans. At least those guys are willing to work with you.
The fon routers are basically the same as the meraki ones, just a different firmware. And they cost 5€/$ with a invite code.
Meraki is now funded by Sequoia, a major west coast Vulture Capital http://www.sequoiacap.com/company/meraki/
These guys have been doing it for free for years:
http://www.locustworld.com/
locustworld pissed people off long before meraki could by having a free/paid model for the firmware. there has been no development on that platform for years.
openWRT is the way forward: by extension then, support freifunk, BATMAN open source mesh and open hardware initiatives.
What you have said is very true. I also was a meraki fan and I even did quite a lot of promo for meraki. I even applied for the reseller thing. But then they totally screwed it. Now im an open-mesh fan
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