FSO being a PtP technology, the
optical wireless mesh network discussed throughout the remainder of this chapter is a
PtP mesh network. However, it is valuable to discuss PtM mesh networks briefly.
PtM is a mesh network of nodes that use point-to-multipoint RF wireless technology
to communicate with other nodes. By virtue of having used a PtM RF wireless technology,
the physical topology of a PtM mesh network does not have to be predefined and
static. The nodes can be nomadic or even mobile in certain cases. This attribute makes
PtM mesh networks ideally suited for ad-hoc networks where randomly distributed
nodes communicate with each other to create a mesh network. Unlike PtP mesh networks
where every connection between two nodes has to be predefined, PtM mesh networks
have the benefit of being dynamic??”in the sense that the number of neighboring
nodes that a node can directly communicate with can be dynamic. This facilitates the
creation of a dense mesh network, giving it more redundancy.
PtM mesh networks have several limitations compared to PtP mesh networks.
Mostly, nodes in PtM mesh networks can communicate with only one other node at any
given time, even though these nodes may be capable of communicating directly with
multitudes of nodes at different times.
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