Open Garden wirelessly interconnects many smart devices into an intelligent network. A network capable of opportunistic local connections and pathways offering improved bandwidth and coverage while reducing transmission power.

Such a mobile mesh network, in its highly adaptive and self-optimizing capacities is evolving wireless networking into a rich, vibrant garden of information. An Open Garden.

Our users are not just power consumers, but students sharing knowledge with classmates, workers routing vital access to fellow employees, and if the need arises, sources of a potential lifeline to information.

In global regions with underdeveloped infrastructure or restrictions on information, mobile mesh tethering may be the primary and often only source of internet access to individuals whose need for its empowerment is greatest.

Simply put, Open Garden provides a valuable service for those with existing internet access and an invaluable necessity for those without.

Such a paradigm shift in the network topology is expected to be met with hesitation. Contractual concerns have been raised about mobile tethering, but it can only utilize the bandwidth which subscribers pay for and are allotted. Nothing is taken from the network operators. Still there is concern that users will get better deals on their unlimited data plans and increase network operation costs.

And, here too mobile meshing is the answer: by utilizing the WiFi and Bluetooth capacities of mobile and laptop devices to integrate various wireless and hard access points, a mobile mesh network can route data opportunistically through the right assets at the right time. Thus Open Garden can in fact reduce network congestion and generate fresh value every time it leverages the resources of multiple networks to offload traffic from an overburdened access route to an underutilized one.

Network performance is optimized for subscribers and providers alike. Subscribers will simply experience better coverage and more bandwidth, and will be increasingly satisfied with their service provider of choice. Providers in turn will see network congestion reduced and new opportunities for revenue.  Mobile mesh networks cannot replace service providers, they can only make them better.

Open Garden is an idea whose time has come. It is a natural evolution of wireless networking from an unwieldy and disarrayed mass into an adaptive and self-organizing ecology. That which is efficient, grows, and the Mobile Mesh Network is forming…

Open Garden Beta application uses the bluetooth interface of your Android, Mac OS X and Windows devices. Once installed the application will automatically form a mesh network enabling any device within the mesh to use the connectivity of any other device 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi.

To be part of our Private Beta! Go to our applications forum.

You received our message because you have Open Garden software installed on your phone. We are taking the extraordinary step of contacting you directly because of an extraordinary law that is being proposed by the entertainment industry and its lobbyists in Washington. If this law were in effect instead of the current laws governing the Internet, Open Garden would likely have never existed. And not just Open Garden, but most of the applications and sites that you know, as long as they include a user-to-user communication component.

The Internet has allowed people around the world to communicate freely in ways unimaginable before and has enabled high-tech startups around the world, such as the San Francisco-based Open Garden, to flourish and innovate.

The US Congress is currently considering a new law, called PIPA (PROTECT IP Act) in the Senate and SOPA in the House, that has the potential to end the Internet innovation as we know it today. For example, companies would be liable for uses of their tools by others; Open Garden as it exists today would not be possible in the legal climate that would be created by this new draconian censorship law. In fact, most companies and non-profit organizations using the Internet today would likely either need to radically limit their use of the Internet or cease to exist. A single comment posted by a user on a website could cause the website operator, who is very likely unaware of the comment, to be liable. Further, entire companies could be cut off from both the Domain Name System (DNS), which is what lets you access websites by name (e.g., opengarden.net instead of 50.19.242.92), and any means of receiving payment simply based on allegations by any copyright holder.

In addition to the societal implications of PIPA/SOPA that would largely end web innovation as it exists today with communication between users and with all the user-generated content like Wikipedia as well as most of Facebook, the technical consequences of breaking the DNS will jeopardize security.

Today is the day the Internet takes action to fight back against Washington lobbyists working for entertainment industry and to ensure that our freedom to communicate is preserved. This is why today Wikipedia and other sites have joined the blackout, and why we are sending you this message. We need your help. The power belongs to the people and not to the lobbyists. The power belongs to you.

We urge you to call your Senator using the form above (or directly if you prefer) and help in the fight to stop the Internet censorship law. When you speak with the staffer, make sure to say clearly what your zip code is and that you are opposed to the PROTECT IP Act that would kill Internet innovation.

Fight Internet censorship.
Call your Senator now!

Open Garden has sent this message to its users. The form to connect to your senator is provided by the Engine Advocacy initiative to fight against SOPA and PIPA.

Total mobile data consumption is going to double every year and will reach 3.6 exabytes per month in 2014 (Source Cisco VNI Mobile). Video traffic will account for more than 60% of the total traffic, the rest of the traffic being divided between peer-to-peer applications, gaming, voice over IP, web, email and other data applications.

To respond to this explosion of the demand for mobile data, mobile operators and indirectly cellular networks like Lightsquare and Clearwire don’t have so many options.

There are only 3 ways to improve the cellular network infrastructure:

• The government can put on auction more spectrum and force re-purposed spectrum
• Cellular networks can increase the bandwidth of backhaul links or increase the power of the towers risking “to fry the birds”
• or mobile operators can embrace technologies like Wi-Fi or fem-to-cell that improve the network by multiplying micro sites

The alternative proposed by Open Garden falls into this third category and  represents important savings in terms of investments. In 2010, the amount invested by mobile operators to improve their network infrastructure was according to Alcatel Lucent above $150 Billion.

Open Garden improves the network at its edge transforming each smartphone or connected device into a micro site that can receive and transmit data to its peers. That way Open Garden alleviates congestion by self-optimizing the network at the edge.

During conventions, large events, or conferences – the more density of people there is, the less capacities the cellular network achieves – for Open Garden it is the opposite, the more density of people there is, the more capacities becomes available. Open garden mesh network will optimize connectivity by using its muti-path or multi-hop wi-fi offload technologies.

83% of Open Garden users are based in US, compared to an average of 35% for other mobile applications in our category.

The average usage among active user is high: 727 MB/month carried through Open Garden tether application.