im trying to think of a project/product name. bounce echo ricochet leap-frog im picturing the data bouncing from porch to porch down a typical suburban street.

$80 is the magic price point. $80 for a cpu board with ram and static ram that runs linux AND comes with a radio. Where do you get something like that? The answer is the WRT54G. How about $90 with antenna and an 11g radio. Yeah baby!

Write open source mesh software for the broadcom CPU & radio chipset (pretty hard). Then for every meshbox order, buy a WRT54G, put the guts in a custom case, and deliver it to the customer.

The ease of customer installation is one of my favorite parts. Screw into the side of your house or on a post or on a tripod mount (sold separately), plug in PoE box inside the house. Connect use ethernet between the PoE box and the meshbox, and the PoE and your ethernet hub.