Is Multipeer Connectivity a true mesh network?
Is Multipeer Connectivity a true mesh network?
- Subject: Is Multipeer Connectivity a true mesh network?
- From: Jens Alfke <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 08:34:53 -0700
With the popularity of FireChat, the Multipeer Connectivity framework has been getting some hype. This breathless Cult Of Mac article says it’s a long-distance mesh network:
> "The Multipeer Connectivity Framework … can enable two users to chat not only without an Internet connection, but also when they are far beyond WiFi and Bluetooth range from each other — connected with a chain of peer-to-peer users between one user and a far-away Internet connection. It’s called wireless mesh networking. And Apple has mainstreamed it in iOS 7. It’s going to change everything."
— http://www.cultofmac.com/271225/appreciated-ios-7-feature-will-change-world/
I don’t believe this is true, but since the protocols behind MPC are proprietary and undocumented I can’t tell for sure. The API docs talk about “_nearby_ iOS devices”. An MPCSession only supports up to 8 peers. I suppose it might be possible for one app to join multiple MPCSessions and manually relay messages between them, which might conceivably be used to extend the range.
Is anyone at Apple willing to pierce the veil of secrecy that surrounds this and give us a clue about whether this would work?
As I’ve said before, I’m basically excited about MPC, but I don’t believe it will come to much unless Apple opens up the protocols, the way they did from the beginning with Bonjour. Proprietary network protocols (except those used internally by individual apps) are pretty few and far between these days.
—Jens
PS: Almost posted this to bonjour-dev instead, but on second thought there’s no evidence that MPC actually uses Bonjour.
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