AU2021203207B2 - Systems, methods and devices for networking over a network - Google Patents

Abstract

OF THE DISCLOSURE The present disclosure is related to systems, methods, and processor readable media for distributing digital data over networks. Certain embodiments relate to systems, methods, and devices used within such networks where at least a substantial portion of the interconnected devices are capable of interacting with one or more neighboring devices, and then to form such a network either with no gateway and/or control point, with a single gateway and/or control point or with a number of gateways and/or control points.

Description

SYSTEMS, METHODS AND DEVICES FOR NETWORKING OVER A NETWORK CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

[00011 This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/700,593, entitled "SYSTEMS, METHODS AND DEVICES FOR NETWORKING OVER A NETWORK," filed on September 13, 2012; and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/794894, entitled "SYSTEMS, METHODS AND DEVICES FOR NETWORKING OVER A NETWORK," filed on March 15, 2013. These US provisional applications is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

FIELD 100021 Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to networks. Certain embodiments relate to systems, methods, and devices used within such networks where at least a substantial portion of the interconnected devices are capable of interacting with one or more neighboring devices, and then to form such a network either with no gateway and/or control point, with a single gateway and/or control point or with a number of gateways and/or control points.

BACKGROUND

[0003] Networks are utilized in a number of application areas to route data and/or other information between devices/nodes within the network. For example, mesh networks are used in utility applications to route data and/or other information between utility meters, for example, electrical meters. Some networks allow for substantially continuous connections by retransmitting messages from device-to-device until a destination is reached and reconfigurations around broken or blocked paths by re-routing messages via other devices. 100041 The traditional approach is to create a set of routers that will form a tree, where the leaves are access points. Those routers typically have to be able to maintain high speed links to serve a variety of demanding bandwidth and low-latency applications (such as video). The access point then uses WiFi WiMax/ZigBee to communicate with the end-devices. This approach may be suitable for applications like the deployment of surveillance cameras, etc.

[00051 A different set of emerging applications involves the interconnection of a large number of inexpensive devices receiving and transmitting relatively small amounts of data. Spaces that have this form of problem are, for example, Smart Grid, Home Automation, Building Automation, networks of sensors and controllers, and ad hoc network applications. There is a fundamental constraint on such mesh networks created by the limited bandwidth of many of the nodes in the mesh network. As routes through the mesh network become longer, the constraint of aggregating data originating from other nodes creates a rapidly decreasing capacity for the mesh as a whole. This is often referred to as the multi-hop problem of mesh networks and represents a significant restriction on the use of wireless networks in certain application areas. f0006] The access point approaches known in the art are constrained by resource limitations. The amount of devices that an access point can manage is limited. Another limitation is the significant overhead on the actual payload. In a typical access point based network a node wanting to send 8 bits of data will have to send: 24 bits (minimum number of bits required to distinguish between devices) as a request to send data; the access point will send 32 bits back (24 bits of address plus 8 bits designating the channel / time slot/ spreading sequence); then the device will send 32 bits (24 bits of destination address plus 8 bits of data, if source address is suppressed). The access point will then send 56 bits (24 bits of source address, 8 bits of data, 24 bits of destination address) to the next hop. Ignoring the physical layer overhead, such a system operates at 1/I Iof its actual bandwidth between access points and the device and at 1/7of the bandwidth between access points.

[00071 Accordingly, systems, methods, and devices for solving these and other problems disclosed herein within certain types of networks are desirable. The present disclosure is directed to overcome and/or ameliorate at least one of the disadvantages of the prior art as will become apparent from the discussion herein.

SUMMARY 100081 Certain embodiments are to a network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the at least one of the plurality of devices is positioned within a distance from the at least one gateway such that the distance allows communication between the at least one gateway and the at least one of the plurality of devices; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network and the at least one gateway within the network is capable of handling at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 devices without the need for additional infrastructure. 10009J Certain embodiments are to a network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; and (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network and the at least one gateway within the network is capable of handling at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 devices without the need for additional infrastructure.

[00101 Certain embodiments are to a network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; and (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network; wherein the network is capable of handling at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 wireless devices; and wherein the plurality of devices, the at least one gateway and the at least one computing device form the network without the need for additional infrastructure.

[00111 Certain embodiments are to a network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (b) at least one gateway capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; and (c) at least one electronic computing device capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein the ratio of available bandwidth to the net pay load of a substantial portion of the network system is between 50 to 200, 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200000, 200 to 2 million, 2 million to I billion, one billion to 100 billion.

[0012] Certain embodiments are to a network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a)at least one electronic computing device for operating the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; and (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the system is configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes are capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route.

[0013) Certain applications are to network systems, wherein the system is capable of handling at least 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000, 50,000 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up the at least one route without substantially increasing transmission overhead. 10014] Certain applications are to network systems, wherein the network is a substantially wireless network,

[00151 Certain applications are to network systems, wherein additional infrastructure includes one or more of the following: access points and routers.

[00161 Certain embodiments are to methods for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a network comprising: receiving and/or transmitting digital data via at least one gateway in the network; generating one or more digital data packets from the digital data suitable for transmission over the network; and performing one or more of the following: transmitting the one or more digital data packets via the at least one gateway to a plurality of devices connected via a suitable topology; and receiving the one or more digital data packets from the plurality of devices connected via a suitable topology to the at least one gateway. Certain applications are to methods further comprising receiving data from the plurality of devices via a transmitting of the data in a hopping fashion from one device to another device until the data is received at the least one gateway.

100171 Also disclosed are computer programming instructions adapted to cause a processing system to carry out these methods may be embodied within a non transitory computer readable storage medium. (00181 As well as the embodiments discussed in the summary, other embodiments are disclosed in the specification, drawings and claims. The summary is not meant to cover each and every embodiment, combination or variations contemplated with the present disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

[0019] These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present disclosure will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying figures where:

[0020] Figure 1 shows a typical flow process for the initialization stage of the nodes in the network, according to certain embodiments. 100211 Figure 2 illustrates an exemplary diagram of an uplink path calculation and process, according to certain embodiments.

[0022] Figure 3A is an exemplary diagram of a route calculation for uplink path and process, according to certain embodiments,

[0023] Figure 3B is an exemplary diagram of a route calculation for downlink path and process in accordance with certain embodiments.

[0024] Figure 4 is a flow chart that depicts the main parts of the uplink resource allocation algorithm, according to certain embodiments.

[0025] Figure 5 illustrates an exemplary packet flow, according to certain embodiments.

[0026] Figure 6 illustrates an exemplary differential data transmission process, according to certain embodiments. 10027] Figure 7 illustrates an exemplary network interface schematic in accordance with certain embodiments.

[00281 Figure 8 illustrates an exemplary format for accomplishing this, according to certain embodiments.

[0029] Figure 9 illustrates what happens in an exemplary six hop process, according to certain embodiments, 100301 Figure 10 illustrates a typical prior art and reuse of the resources.

10031] Figure 11 illustrates interference issues that may occur when many devices axe placed in close proximity to each other.

[00321 Figure 12 illustrates a process for removing or reducing adjunct channel interference, according to certain embodiments. 100331 Figure 13 illustrates an even resource allocation for a particular device, according to certain embodiments.

[0034] Figure 14 illustrates an uneven resource allocation for a particular device, according to certain embodiments. 100351 Figure 15 illustrates typical existing wireless network categories.

[00361 Figure 16 shows a network with one access point (open circle) and a plurality of node (black out circle).

[0037] Figure 17 shows a typical star network topology approach. 100381 Figure 18 shows a typical tree network topology approach where reduced transmitting power at the access point (open circle) and nodes (filled in circle) is used.

[0039] Figure 19 shows another typical tree network topology approach. 100401 Figure 20 shows a typical network topology approach where the transmitting power of the access points and end-nodes is reduced. 100411 Figure 21 shows another typical network topology approach.

[0042] Figure 22 illustrates a network system solution, according to certain disclosed embodiments, 10043] Figure 23 illustrates a network system solution, according to certain disclosed embodiments.

[0044] Figure 24 illustrates a network system solution, according to certain disclosed embodiments. 10045} Figure 25 illustrates a network system solution, according to certain disclosed embodiments.

[0046] Figure 26 is graph that shows the bandwidth (16 bits) efficiency of a system that uses ZigBee physical and MAC layer. 10047] Figure 27 are graphs that show the bandwidth (128 bits) efficiency of a system that uses ZigBee physical and MAC layer.

[0048] Figure 28 is a graph that shows the bandwidth efficiency for 16-bit payload, according to certain embodiments.

100491 Figure 29 depicts a flow chart of the self-configuration process, according to certain embodiments. 100501 Figure 30 depicts the process of configuring the network from scratch, according to certain embodiments. 100511 Figure 31 depicts the first round of self-configuration, according to certain embodiments.

[0052] Figure 32 depicts the process of adding more devices to the existing network, according to certain embodiments.

[0053] Figure 33 illustrates downlink during configuration, according to certain embodiments. 10054] Figure 34 shows an exemplary uplink packet (with no broken links) sent from the gateway towards central computer, according to certain embodiments. 100551 Figure 35 depicts the process of detecting the broken link (missing nodes), according to certain embodiments.

[00561 Figure 36 depicts the process of repairing the broken link, according to certain embodiments.

[00571 Figure 37 depicts encryption and authentication-down link, sending data from the central computer, according to certain embodiments. 100581 Figure 38 depicts encryption and authentication-down link, receiving data, according to certain embodiments.

[0059] Figure 39 shows the process of receiving the data from child device, appending data and forwarding the packet using the above security mechanism, according to certain embodiments. 100601 Figure 40 depicts the process of receiving data on the downlink and embedding the received data (signature of the received data) into the up-link signature, according to certain embodiments. 100611 Figure 41, depicts a device's security operations, according to certain embodiments. 100621 Figure 42 depicts the process receiving data on the downlink and embedding the signature of last received state into the signature of the uplink data, according to certain embodiments. 10063] Figure 43 depicts the process of changing channels to avoid interference, according to certain embodiments.

100641 Figure 44 depicts self-healing by rerouting to avoid broken link, according to certain embodiments.

[0065] Figure 45 depicts a one hop network, according to certain embodiments.

[0066] Figure 46 shows resource allocation for one hop network, according to certain embodiments.

[0067] Figure 47 shows interconnected star networks, according to certain embodiments.

[0068] Figure 48 shows a wireless network with access point, according to certain embodiments. 100691 Figure 49 shows ring topology network, according to certain embodiments.

[0070] Figure 50 shows larger scale network, according to certain embodiments.

DESCRIPTION

[0071] The present disclosure will now be described in detail with reference to one or more embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The examples and embodiments are provided by way of explanation and are not to be taken as limiting to the scope of the disclosure. Furthermore, features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment may be used by themselves to provide other embodiments and features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment may be used with one or more other embodiments to provide a further embodiments. It will be understood that the present disclosure will cover these variations and embodiments as well as other variations and/or modifications. 100721 It will be understood that the term "comprise" and any of its derivatives (e.g., comprises, comprising) as used in this specification is to be taken to be inclusive of features to which it refers, and is not meant to exclude the presence of any additional features unless otherwise stated or implied. 10073] In certain applications, the term "managing the network" may mean one or more actions that may be performed to create, maintain, operate, and/or obtain information about the network, including as needed or desired upgrading firmware on one or more of the following: one or more individual devices, one or more gateways, one or more access points and one or more routers.

10074] In certain applications, the term "broken link" may refer to a link between at least one first participant and at least one second participant, where the link has existed or was assumed to exist, and is then considered to be of insufficient quality. Participant may be one or more of the following: a device, a gateway, a router, access point and some other participant

[00751 The features disclosed in this specification (including accompanying claims, abstract, and drawings) may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise. Thus, unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed is one example of a generic series of equivalent or similar features, 100761 The subject headings used in the detailed description are included only for the ease of reference of the reader and should not be used to limit the subject matter found throughout the disclosure or the claims. The subject headings should not be used in construing the scope ofthe claims or the claim limitations. 100771 Certain embodiments disclosed herein may be mesh networks, wireless networks, networks that have both wired devices/nodes and wireless devices/nodes, networks that have both wired gateways and wireless gateways; networks that have wireless gateways, networks wherein a substantial portion of the devices and/or gateways are wireless, networks wherein a portion of the devices and/or gateways are wireless, or combinations thereof.

[0078) In certain applications, a central computer, or a plurality of computing devices, may be used to set the predefined times, the predefined resources and/or the predefined amounts of data. The computer devices that are used herein may be based on separate computers, handheld devices and/or cloud computing resources. In certain applications the computer functions may be performed by at least one gateway, at least one access point, at least one router, and in certain instances by one or more individual devices within the network or combinations thereof. Where the computing function is positioned relative to the network and/or system may vary significantly depending on the particular application. For example, in certain applications, one or more functions performed by the central computer may be portioned or segmented among a number of computing devices. For example, in certain applications the computing functions may be distributed such that route allocation, resource allocation, security functions, other desired function or combinations thereof may be divided between a number of computing devices. Furthermore, the central computer, or the plurality of computing devices, may be used to configure one network, one system, at least one network, at least one system, multiple networks, multiple systems and so forth.

[0079] The predefined time, predefined resource and/or predefined amount of data are typically determined at configuration stage or at reconfiguration (self-healing) stage.

[0080 The predefined time typically may be related to a time period, for example, one or more individual devices may be configured to perform certain actions at times equal to 10, 30, 50 and 80 msec in a period of 100 msec. This means that the individual device will perform those actions at times equal to 10, 30, 50, 80, 110, 130, 150 and 180 msec and so forth. However other ways of defining the predefined time are also possible, for example nexttime is equal to current time plus 10 msec.

[00811 Time slot notation may be used instead of "predefined time". For example if timeslot is 5 msee and current timeslot is 4 and the next action will occur at timeslot 7 than the devices can go to sleep and wake-up after 5*(7-4)=15 msec. 10082J Address information is substantially absent in the data transmitted or received if amount of bits constituting address information is 0 bits, I bit, 2 bits, 3 bits or bits.

[0083] Figures 16 to 25 depict network topologies of certain embodiments. It should be understood that these figures are exemplary only and the depicted topologies can be easily expanded to larger and much larger networks, It also should be understood that it is possible to have combinations of the depicted topologies in one system.

[0084] Figure 13 illustrates exemplary resource allocation for an individual device. The allocation is done on the time-channel space, however any other resource space can be used. Examples are: time-CDMA codes, time-channel-CDMA code, time TDD, time-channel-TDD, time-channel-frequency hopping sequence, time-channel CMDA code-frequency hopping sequence, time-CDMA code offset or combinations of the above.

[00851 Table 10 depicts an exemplary configuration table of an individual device. The individual device wakes-up, perform an action and goes to sleep until next predefined time (next action). RF channel is used as predefined resource in this example. The amount of bytes to be read is defined by offset and length column and the amount of bytes to be appended to transmitted data is defined by length column. Period= 100 msec

Time [msec] RF channel Action Offset Length (bytes) 10 3 Receive-down 5 2 45 5 Senddown

67 4 Receive-up

76 6 Append-data 3 87 7 Maintx

97 7 Maint rx

Table 10

[0086] In certain embodiments the address of individual devices and/or the routing information is established and/or derived based on a set of information pertaining to at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources. As an example, the central computer will know that 3 bytes of data received at time = 34 msec, at offset 7 was sent by device with ID of x13645343.

[0087] In certain embodiments more complex rules can be used, for example the RF channel to be used in the next time slot may be calculated using a formula.

[00881 In certain embodiments the predefined rule may be expressed as a formula, for example nextRFchannel = (currentRF-channel + 1) modulo 10; or as a set of computer instructions. {0089] In certain embodiments a substantial portion of the individual devices transmit and/or receive for a predefined period of time. For example the device may be instructed to transmit for 1 msec. The amount of transmitted data is the function of selected data rate, which may vary depending on the quality of the RF link

[00901 In certain embodiments the amount of data is substantially the same and/or variable. For example the individual device may be preconfigured to append between 5 to 7 bits. The actual amount of bits may be determined by the device. 100911 In certain embodiments a resource is substantially the same and/or variable. For example, the device may be preconfigured to transmit at offsets between

- Il-

1020 to 1030 in the CDMA code. The actual offset at which device transmits may be determined by the device. 100921 In certain embodiments gateway is the device that connects at least one other device to another typically higher bandwidth media. Examples of gateway are: LAN connected device connecting wireless devices, converting LAN packets into wireless protocol, for example embedding data intended to a particular device in a particular offset in the particular time slotcellular base-station

[00931 In certain embodiments access point is the device that is used to extend existing wireless network, for example WiFi access point. 10094] In certain embodiments the intentional radiator is a device that intentionally uses the resource shared by a device on the network, for example ZigBee device transmitting on the same RF channel. 10095] In certain embodiments non-intentional radiator is a device that uses different resource but creates interference on another resource, for example device transmitting at RF channel number 6 and creating interference on channel number 7. 100961 Figure 47 shows a network of the existing art, where two star interconnected networks are connected. The network is comprised of devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving information and routers. The purpose of the routers is to maintain and in some case create a network. In existing art, the network can only be created, maintained and information can flow through the network, if substantial portion of devices perform network related functions, Network related functions are the functions required to move information from at least one device on the network to at least one other device on the network. For example, in existing art, in order to move an information formdevice 2 to device 8, device 2 needs to append source and / or destination address to the information. The router A then needs to interpret the packet and based on the information contained in the packet forward the packet to router B. Router B needs to interpret the packet and based on the information contained in the packet forward the packet to device 8.

[0097] Network related functions typically involve performing one or more of the following: Parsing the received data and retrieving network related information, for example: sender address, destination address, number of hops, routing information, etc. Acting based on the retrieved information, for example: storing the information, forwarding the information to another device, updating internal routing tables

[00981 Embedding and/or altering network related information. 10099j Figure 48 shows a wireless network comprising of a router and an access point. The access point extends the network. For example device 8 is connected to a sub-network formed by access point. The access point then routes the traffic coming to and/or coming from device 8. 1001001 Figure 49 shows a ring topology network. The network can be wired or wireless.

[001011 Figure 50 shows a larger network with mixed star and ring sub networks. This type of network may also be refen-ed as a tree. 1001021 In the above examples depicted by figures 47 to 50 the routers and access points are network infrastructure devices. Network infrastructure devices typically exist to create and maintain the network. 1001031 There are several applications where it is desirable to have a network of interconnected devices, wherein a substantial portion of the devices in the network are capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device and form a mesh network with one or more of the following: no gateway and/or control point a single gateway and/or control point; a single gateway and a plurality of control points; a plurality of gateways and a single control point; or a plurality of gateways and/or control points. Typically in certain applications of these networks at least 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 95%, 98% or 99% of the devices within the network will communicate via one or more wireless configurations. In certain applications of these networks, between 50% to 100%, 50% to 99%, 50% to 70%, 60% to 90%, 70% to 95%, 95 % to 100% or 95% to 99 % of the devices within the network will communicate via one or more wireless configurations, Various wireless and/or wired configurations may be used. In certain embodiments, a substantial portion of the devices in the network means that at least 60%, %, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%, 98%, 99%, 99.5% or 99.8% of the devices in the network are capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device. In certain embodiments, a substantial portion of the devices in the network means that at least 60%, %, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%, 98%, 99%, 99.5% or 99.8% of the devices in the network are capable of interacting with at least two neighbouring devices. In certain embodiments, a substantial portion of the devices in the network means that at least 60%, %, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%, 98%, 99%, 99.5% or 99.8% of the devices in the network are capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device and form a network either with no gateway and/or control point, with a single gateway and/or control point or with a plurality of gateways and/or control points which is capable of interacting with the mesh network, either from a single control point or from a numberof control points, In certain embodiments, a substantial portion of the devices in the network means that at least between 40% to 99.8%, 50% to 70%, 60% to 85%, 70% to 90%, 85% to 98%, 90% to 98%, 95% to 99.5%, 98% to 99.8% or 99% to 998% of the devices in the network are capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device. In certain embodiments, each of the devices in the network is capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device. Such mesh networks are desirable because of one or more of the following: I. It offers the potential to make a substantial portion of the devices relatively inexpensive (less than, for example, $10, less than $8, less than $5, less than $2, less than $1) and/or power efficient (where ratio of transmit plus receive time to idle time is equal to, for example, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 1000, 5000, 10000, 20000, 60000, 90000, 120000,200000 or 300000) as they do not need to transmit over long distances (more than 5m,IOm, 50m, I00m, 400m or Ikm) or deal with a complex array of simultaneous channels. In certain applications the ratio of transmit plus receive time to idle time is between, for example, between 100 to 300000, 100 to 500, 200 to 1000, 500 to 2000, 1000 to10000, 1000 to 5000, 10000 to 50000, 40000 to 120000, 50000 to 140000, 80000 to 200000, 120000 to 300000 or 160000 to 350000. 2. In certain embodiments, it offers the potential to make a substantial portion of the devices in the network relatively inexpensive and/or power efficient as a substantial portion of the devices do to transmit over long distances or deal with a complex array of simultaneous channels. In certain embodiments, it offers the potential to make each device relatively inexpensive and/or power efficient as each device does not need to transmit over long distances or deal with a complex array of simultaneous channels. 3, It offers the potential to dynamically and/or simply create an extended network, as extensions to the network may be achieved by adding more nodes to the mesh rather than reconfiguring complex and/or powerful central transmitters and receivers, 4. It offers the potential to provide self-healing networks, where a failure or a blockage in one network route can be corrected by rerouting through another part of the mesh, 5. It significantly reduces the transmission overhead, which can be very extensive in cases where small packets of data are sent, thus increasing available bandwidth. In the prior art a packet would normally have source and destination address, assuming 16 bit source and destination addresses, the device transmitting or receiving 8 bits of data will have MAC layer overhead (excluding physical layer overhead) of 32/8= 400%. In certain applications of the present disclosure the MAC overhead is 0%, less than 10%, less than 5%, less than 1%. 6. It offers the potential to significantly reduce infrastructure costs by eliminating and/or reducing the need for access points and/or routers. .For example the number of other infrastructure devices can be 0%, 0.01%, 0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 3%, 5% or 10% ofthe devices on the network. Certain embodiments are directed to one or more combinations of one or more of the enumerated advantages disclosed herein.

[00104] The technology of the present disclosure overcomes and/or ameliorates at least one of the disadvantages of the prior art by managing the system as a whole, creating optimized routes, optimized channel allocation and optimized time slot allocation, eliminating or reducing amount of overhead information (such as addresses, ACK / NACK, routing information) or combinations thereof. Channel and time slot allocations are given as an example. Other forms of resources can be used, for example: spreading sequences, FDD sequences or combination of CDM, FDD, TDM and frequency channel resource slicing. Certain embodiments are also directed to significantly reducing the transmission overhead by suppressing source and destination headers and in certain applications suppressing request-channel allocation-transmission overhead. This solution is particularly applicable to those networks where the data traffic originating and/or designated for a substantial portion of the nodes are relatively small (so that reducing or eliminating overhead is beneficial), and therefore the solution is applicable to the creation and/or maintenance of mesh networks that deal with large numbers of devices and/or sensors. In certain embodiments, this solution is particularly applicable to those mesh networks where the data traffic originating or designated for each node is relatively small (so that reducing or eliminating overhead is beneficial), and therefore the solution is especially applicable to the creation and maintenance of mesh networks that deal with a large number of devices and/or sensors. In certain embodiments, by a substantial portion we mean that the number of nodes within the network is at least 50,000, 100,000, 300,000, 500,000, 700,000, 1,000,000, 1,500,000, 3,000,000, 5,000,000 or more. In certain embodiments, by a substantial portion we mean the number of nodes within the network is between 25,000 to 500,000, 100,000 to 1,000,000, 250,000 to 600,000, 500,000 to I million, 500,000 to 2 million, 700,000 to 2 million, 800,000 to 5 million, I million to 10 million or 2 million to 15 million.

[00105] In the prior art, routers (or routing capable devices) would typically figure out the best route based on partial information available to them. In certain

- 15'- embodiments of the present disclosure, the system is managed as a whole in that routes are generated based on at least a substantial portion of the information. In prior art resources (i.e., time slot and frequency) are typically allocated based on random access, Managing the system as a whole allows the system to fully utilize resources by eliminating peaks in demand.

[001061 The devices and/or sensors that may be used with certain embodiments includes, but is not limited to current sensors, light sensors, humidity sensors, pressure sensors, gas sensors, chemicals sensors, proximity sensors, movement sensors, magnetic (hall effect) sensors, radiation sensors, cameras, scanners, sprinkles, heater controllers, pump controllers, air-conditioning controllers, water supply controllers or combinations thereof. In certain applications of the technology a device may perform multiply functions, for example, the device may include one of more of the following: measure something, control another device (using dry contacts, wired or wireless communication protocol), monitor something, report measured data back, report anomalies, accept and execute control commands.

[001071 Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein a portion or a substantial portion of the devices on the network are treated as a system, which may be automatically configured based on available resources and system requirements. As compared, for example, with known wireless networks that typically need to define MAC (and higher) level protocol and determine routing by network elements.

[001081 Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein the packet exchange and routing is done with zero overhead and no addresses are required. Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein the packet exchange and routing is done with zero to substantial little overhead and no addresses may be required, however, addresses may be used if so desired. Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein the packet exchange and routing is done with substantially zero overhead and no addresses are required.

[00109] Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein configuration may done based on network resources/realities (i.e., physical location of a plurality of the devices) and/or system requirements (comprised, for example, of a plurality of the devices).

1001101 Certain embodiments are directed to network systems, systems and/or methods wherein centralized configuration, or substantially centralized configuration, ensures substantial interference free operation, resulting in increased effective bandwidth. In certain embodiments, the bandwidth utilization may be increased by 100%, 500%, 1,000%, 20,000% or 35,000% over existing technologies. For example, as discussed herein, certain embodiments may result in the ability to substantially increase the amount of devices that can be handled by the network without increasing the infrastructure or insubstantially increasing the infrastructure. One of the advantages of the technology disclosed herein is the ability to use bandwidth in a much more efficient way. Mother advantage is less need for infrastructure. Figure 28 is a graph that shows the bandwidth efficiency for 16-bit payload, according to certain embodiments. In contrast, Figure 26 and Figure 27 are graphs that show the bandwidth efficiency of a system that uses ZigBee physical and MAC layer. The assumption is that short addressing is used. ZigBec was chosen as an example because it provides the lowest overhead compared to other protocols (WiFi, cellular), In application this means that if tolerable packet loss is around 1% then the effective bandwidth for 16-bit payload is less than 2%.

[001111 Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein the peak data rate of the system may be less, substantial equal or more then system capacity, Centralized configuration smoothes the peak, allowing higher throughput. In those embodiments the throughput may be increased by 10%, 30%, 50% or 100%. 1001121 Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein the system is substantially predictable and if links deteriorate, the system will behave in substantially predefined manner, 100113J Certain embodiments are directed to systems, network systems and/or methods wherein at least one configuration computer substantially determines the network configuration based on one or more of the following requirements: a portion of the nodes, a substantial portion of the nodes, or for each node: bandwidth; latency (from the device and to the device); Burst length; Periodicity;current consumption; battery life and data pattern (for example 10 bit every 10 seconds plus 20 bits every minute).

[001141 Certain embodiments are directed to systems, network systems and/or methods wherein at least one configuration resource substantially determines a configuration of one or more of the following: the system, the network system, a portion of the system and a portion of the network system, based on one or more constraints and/or preferences. 100115J In certain embodiments the at least one configuration resource used to the configuration is one or more of the following: at least one computer, at least one computing device, a plurality of computers, a plurality of computing devices, a plurality of computers where a portion of the plurality of computers are capable to send and/or receive data from at least one computer, a plurality of computing devices where a portion of the plurality of computing devices are capable to send and/or receive data from at least one computing device.

[00116] In certain embodiments the constraints and/or preferences used to determine the configuration are one or more of the following: bandwidth; latency; Burst length; Periodicity; current consumption; battery life and data pattern (for example 10 bit every 10 seconds plus 20 bits every minute)

[001171 In certain embodiments the constraints and/or preferences are of one or more of the following: at least one individual device, at least one gateway, at least one access point, at least one base station and at least one router. 1001181 In certain embodiments the bandwidth constraint and/or preference may be one or more of the following: available bandwidth, available bandwidth on the uplink, available bandwidth on the downlink, available bandwidth at the receiving device, bandwidth available at a particular time slot. 100119] In certain embodiments the bandwidth constraint and/or preference may be expressed as one or more of the following: data rate, symbol rate, data rate on the uplink, data rate on the downlink.

[00120] In certain embodiments the latency constraint and/or preference may be expressed as one or more of the following: minimal latency between data is being originated and data being delivered to the individual device, typical latency between data is being originated and data being delivered to the individual device, average latency between data is being originated and data being delivered to the individual device, minimal latency between data is being sent and data being delivered to the individual device, typical latency between data is being sent and data being delivered to the individual device, average latency between data is being sent and data being delivered to the individual device. In certain embodiments the latency can be expressed as one or more of the following: absolute time, relative time, number of timeslots.

[00121] In certain embodiments the burst length constraint and/or preference may be expressed as one or more of the following: period of time, amount of data, amount of transmitted and/or received symbols. In certain embodiments the burst length can vary in time. 1001221 In certain embodiments the periodicity constraint and/or preference may be expressed as one or more of the following: period of time, number of timeslots, number of cycles. In certain embodiments the periodicity may vary in time.

[00123] In certain embodiments the current consumption constraint and/or preference may be one or more of the following: worst case current consumption, best case current consumption, average current consumption, current consumption under given usage scenario.

[00124] In certain embodiments current consumption constraint and/or preference may be of an individual device or a portion of the devices.

[00125] In certain embodiments the battery life constraint and/or preference may be one or more of the following: worst case battery life, best case battery life, average battery life, battery life under given usage scenario.

[00126] In certain embodiments the battery life constraint and/or preference may be of an individual device or a portion of the devices. 100127] In certain embodiments the data pattern constraint and/or preference may be expressed as one or more of the following: amount of data, amount of symbols transmitted and/or received, amount of time the data was transmitted and/or received, amount of resource that were or may be used to transmit and/or receive the data. In certain embodiments the data pattern may vary in time.

[00128] In certain embodiments the data pattern constraint and/or preference may be of an individual device or a portion of the devices.

[00129] Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein the network configuration is based for a portion of the nodes, a substantial portion of the nodes, or for each node on one or more of the following: channel allocation for transmit/receive; time slot allocation for transmit/receive (time slot may be variable); spreading sequence allocation for transmit/receive; frequency hopping sequence allocation; baud rate for each channel/time slot/spreading sequence - to extend range; and modulation scheme for each channel/time slot/spreading sequence.

[00130] In certain embodiments, routing and configuration may be done to not only to meet bandwidth constraint but also data transmission requirements and/or other requirements. For example if node B receives the information from node A and forwards it to node C, the network may be configured so that: node A makes a reading at time t. Node B receives packet from A, simultaneously makes its own reading, appends its own information to packet from A and forwards it to C and so forth.

[00131] Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein a portion of the nodes, a substantial portion of the nodes, or each node may be configured with its own configuration. And in some applications this configuration may also determine, or substantially determine, network synchronisation.

[00132] Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein smart resource (may be channel, time slot, hoping sequence, spreading sequence, or combinations thereof) allocation ensures substantially interference free operation. The network may not need to be synchronised as network in whole, but only adjacent pans. 1001331 Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein a portion of the nodes, a substantial portion of the nodes, or each node may be configured with set of rules. In certain embodiments, the rules may take one or more of the following forms: Receive packet at time slot X; Append your own information and forward on slot Y; Sleep for Z slots; Wakeup every slot K and synchronise the clock; Receive packet at slot A, remove B bits from the packet; and Forward the packet to slot C

[00134] This enables the system to route packets with no packet headers (destination or routing). Other rule forms may also be used.

[00135) Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein zero (or minimal) overhead by packet aggregation: each subsequent node may append its data and forwards the packet. Because network configuration is known, data then may be extracted at the final destination and uniquely associated with the origin node.

[00136] Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein configuration may be done with an assistance of external (to the network) hardware. For example, this hardware may: Instruct one node to transmit and other nodes to receive the test signal.

Query a portion of the nodes, a substantial portion of the nodes, or each node about signal quality. Record those values for later use by routing/channel allocation programs.

[00137] The location of the device may be recorded and used in routing/channel allocation/time slot allocation algorithm.

[00138] Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein to improve network reliability some, a substantial portion (or all) nodes may be configured to send substantially the same information (or the same information) via one or more different routes. 1001391 Certain embodiments are directed to network systems and/or methods wherein down link (typically from the controllers/gateways) may implement broadcasting. The packet may be transmitted with small address. The address identifies a neighbour that can see this transmission. So, for example, if system is configured so that 8 devices can listen to this broadcast package the header is 3 bits, 1001401 One exemplary implementation, according to certain embodiments, assumes usage of the 2.4 GHz free spectrum. The spectrum is divided into 16 channels, around 5 MHz for each channel. The spectrum may also be divided in other suitable allocations as well, The transceiver operates at around 2.5 Mchips per second using CDM, operating at around 250 kbps. One or more of the channels are divided into time slots. Time slots can have variable length. The device is comprised of the transceiver, MPU and RAM. The MPU used is typically fairly basic to ensure minimal cost, for example 8051. However, other suitable MPUs or ASICs may be used. In this example, there are three stages: (1) Installation and initialization stage; (2) Configuration stage, and (3) Operational stage. It is possible to partition this process differently, for example: Installation, neighbor discovery and route generation, resource allocation and creation of configuration, upload of the configuration, operation, or combinations thereof. 1001411 Initialization Stage

[00142] The end-nodes are deployed in the field. In this example, each device has a unique identification number stored in its internal memory (typically in FLASH). However, in other embodiments a substantial portion of the end-nodes may have a unique identification number. Device type and purpose are recorded typically at the time of installation and/or manufacturing (for example: current measuring sensor making readings every 5 minutes). In some applications device GPS coordinates may be recorded.

100143] Once devices are installed, devices and/or sensors will be in configuration mode. In this mode the device will listen on a specified channel, External configuration device (typically attached to a computer) will issue a command to each device or sensor to transmit. The device will transmit its ID. The rest of the devices (or a suitable number of the devices) will listen to that transmission and record received ID, RSSI and BER or other values representing channel quality. The configuration device reads the information from each device, a portion of the individual devices or a substantial portion of the individual devices. In certain embodiments, this reading is conducted after all the devices (or a portion of the devices or a substantial portion of the devices) have transmitted their ID. The reading may also be conducted in other suitable ways: using different transceiver and/or using wired connection. Certain embodiments use the process depicted in the flow chart of figure 1. However, other suitable processes may also be used. For example, handheld computers, cloud computing resources or other suitable devices. 1001441 Configuration Stage

[00145] In this stage, a computer will process the network information obtained from the devices, for example, the list of neighbour IDs seen by the device, In this exemplary embodiment, for each neighbour the following information is recorded: (1) Channel number; (2) RSSI; and (3) BER. Other suitable parameters or combinations of parameter may also be used, for example: correlation peak, packet error rate, number of chips in error, signal to noise ratio, signal to noise and distortion ratio or combinations thereof, 1001461 This information, together with operational requirements of the device: (1) maximum time device can be in deep sleep mode - example: sensor has to measure current at least every minute; (2) size of the payload the devise has to send /

receive; (3) maximum latency of the data; and (4) how often the data is sent - example: sensor measures current every minute but sends aggregated results every 5 minutes. Other suitable parameters or combinations of parameter may also be used, for example: preferred RF channels, time required to process command, time required to process maintenance information, MPU speed, memory size or combinations thereof.

[00147] The requirements may be more complex and/or may vary with time: for example a sensor measures current every 10 minutes between 12 pm and 6 am, it measures current every 5 minutes between 6 am and 9 am, then it measures current every minute between 9 am and 6 pm, etc.

[00148] Network information and operational requirements are then used to configure the system. Configuration includes, for example:

[001491 Calculating uplink and/or downlink routes (they may be different). 1001501 Allocating resources to avoid interference and/or optimize usage of relevant resources: Resource allocation: channels, time slots, transmitting power, baud rate; and Optimizing resources: battery life, bandwidth.

[001511 Other suitable parameters or combinations of parameter may also be used, for example, allocating resources for network maintenance (adding new devices, self healing, etc.), allocating resources for retransmissions or combinations thereof.

[00152] In this exemplary embodiment, the configuration stage is comprised of following activities: (1) calculating uplink and downlink routes; (2) resource allocation and (3) creating device configuration. Other suitable parameters or combinations of parameter may also be used in the configuration stage.

[00153] Calculating Uplink and Downlink Routes

[00154] In calculating these routes it is desirable to parallel the paths to/from the sink points/control points/gateways. This is desirable because it reduces the impact of failure of one node (a node that fails may make a substantial portion of the nodes that follow it on the down-link/uplink to fail until the network is reconfigured using self healing methods). This is also desirable because it spreads the load more evenly between nodes in the network. In calculating these routes the algorithm selects the less congested path or substantially less congest path. The algorithm also tries to select the shortest path. Other combinations may also be used, for example, existing or predicted RF interference, link quality between nodes, similarity in latency/how often the data is sent, MPU speed, memory size, type of transceiver, transmitter power, receiver noise figure/Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) gain, and/or receiver sensitivity.

[001551 The uplink and downlink route calculation is further divided into two algorithms: 1. a forward path calculation and 2, a up-link route calculation. Other types of routes are also possible: broadcast routes, retransmit routes, network maintenance routes, or combinations thereof. 1001561 The uplink path calculation and process is illustrated in figure 2. The number of permitted back hops (BH) is typically defined as one, However, certain embodiments may be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 back hops, if needed. For clarity, it is assumed that bandwidth is the only parameter to be optimized. The B is used as a measure of how much the selected path deviates from shortest path. Other parameters or combination of parameters can be optimized, for example: receive time, transmit time, transmit power, number of transitions from sleep to transmit and vice versa, number of transitions from sleep to receive and vice versa, baud rate, chip rate, number of frequency channels used, number of frequency bins used (in FDD case). Other parameters can be measured, for example: latency, propagation delay, probability of error at the gateway, probability of retransmission, battery current required to relay the data.

[001571 Figure 3A shows a route calculation (only uplink path calculation is shown), according to certain embodiments. In figure 3A for each device in the current list ranking is done by assigning weights and summing: accumulated bandwidth, number of mutual neighbors and number of hops. Additional parameters can be used: accumulated latency/delay, channel quality, etc. In certain embodiments, various combinations of parameters may be used. Also in figure 3A, after you select best ranked neighbor, the accumulated bandwidth is updated by adding the accumulated bandwidth of the current device to that neighbor. Figure 3B shows a route calculation (only downlink path calculation is shown), according to certain embodiments. There are a number of parameters that may be used for optimisation apart from bandwidth which is used in Figures 3A and 3B. They are typically application dependent. Some of those parameters are: Ramping transmitter/receiver up and down. It may be useful in certain applications to minimise number of Tx to Rx transitions. Latency on the uplink. Latency on the downlink. Channel quality. Existing interference on certain channels. Transmitting power. Battery/non battery operated devices (the traffic may be directed to go through non battery powered devices)

[00158] Resource allocation: To avoid mutual interference, the extended neighbor list is created for each device (or a substantial portion of the devices). Neighbors that are too far to maintain proper communication link but still can be heard are included in this list. Once uplink and downlink paths are known, the resource allocation algorithm uses those paths, extended neighbor list and/or device operational requirements to allocate resource and create configuration for each device (or a substantial portions of the devices). 1001591 Uplink Resource Allocation

[00160] Figure 4 is a flow chart that depicts the main parts of the uplink resource allocation algorithm, according to certain embodiments.

[00161] For each node (or a substantial portion of the nodes), the maximal interval is determined by minimum period and latency of the attached nodes. Configuration period is calculated by varying the maximum interval within given range (i.e., 10%). In other embodiments, the maximum interval may be varied by at least 5%, 6%, 7%, 8%, 9%, 10%, 12%, 15% or other suitable percents. In other embodiments, the maximum interval may be varied by between 5% to 15%, 8% to 12%, 1% to 5%, 10% to % or 20% to 50%. A slot is considered empty if none of the extended neighbors of the transmitting node or of the root is transmitting or receiving on the same channel at the same time (or substantially the same time). Channels (all or a substantial amount) are typically changing every hop (or on a substantial amount of the hops) on a given path. In other embodiments, channels may be kept the same along all paths, some paths or a substantial number of paths.

[00162] Downlink resource allocation 100163] Depending on network requirements, there are various strategies or combinations of strategies that may be used for resource allocation of a given system. For example, where the system is configured such that multiple devices may receive data at given time intervals (for example, controllers receive 8 bits of data every second), The issues are similar to the issues with uplink resource allocation. One difference is that allocation is done in opposite direction (towards the root). ACK/NACK may be embedded into up-link traffic. ACK and/or NACK may be embedded into the up-link data by the last device on the path. If last device on the path has received the data, it implies that the other devices on that path received their data correctly with probability of more than 95%, 97%, 99%, 99.99%, 99.999%, 99.9999%, 99.99999% or 99.999999%. Another example is where multiple devices that are normally idle and receive data with a given latency (for example, controllers that change their state few times a day, where the latency from the command to change state to the actual state change is 100 msec.).

[00164] In certain embodiments, some nodes may be elected to be a broadcast point. In these configurations, at least one channel may be reserved for the downlink traffic. In this exemplary configuration, the broadcast nodes listen on that channel with the period estimated by minimal latency. They then, in turn, broadcast the message to the end-nodes. ACKs and/or NACKs may return on the same channel. In certain applications, ACK time slots may be either defined in broadcast message or are predefined.

[00165] Operational Stage

[001661 Routing and Appending the Data

[00167] Figure 5 illustrates an exemplary packet flow, according to certain embodiments. The first step is to set a wake-up time for node A (, for example, wake-up at time t=20). Then the next step is to measure current, then send packet (for example on channel 2, time slot 3) to node B and finally put node A into a sleep mode. The next step is to set a wake-up time for Node B, for example, wake up and listen on channel 2, time slot 3. Then synchronize clock based on received frame, measure current and append measured data and send, for example, on channel 3, time slot 5. The next step is to listen on a selected channel, for example channel 4, time slot 6, add bridge/gateway unique ID to the received data, and then send as IP packet. Thereafter, at least one computer (for example, at least one central computer) receives the IP packet. Because the system configuration is known, it can parse the data. One advantage of such approach is that little overhead is added as the packet is routed to its destination. As an example, consider a 1000 hops route, where the devices on this route transmit 8 bits of data. Assume that the physical layer adds 6 bytes as preamble, delimiter and length and 2 bytes as CRC. The net overhead per device in this case is 8/1000 = 0.8%. In other embodiments, the overhead can be less than 30%, 20%, 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1% or 0.01%, Another advantage is source/destination addresses may not be required. In prior art, a packet would normally have source and destination address, assuming 16 bit source and destination addresses, the device transmitting or receiving 8 bits of data will have MAC layer overhead (excluding physical layer overhead) of 32/8 = 400%. In certain applications of the present disclosure, the MAC overhead may be 0%, less than 10%, less than 5%, or less than 1%.

[001681 Differential Data Transmission

[001691 In certain applications, a plurality of the devices along the routing path may generate information that is sufficiently, substantially or largely similar, For example, temperature sensors in different parts of the room. At any given point in time temperature measured by a substantial portion of the sensors in the room may be around some average temperature reading. In such applications sensors along the path may send only the difference from the designated sensor. One advantage of this approach is an improvement in bandwidth utilization. In certain the embodiments, the improvement may be at least 10%, 15%, 20%, 30% or 50% in bandwidth utilization. In certain the embodiments, the improvement may be between 10% to 50%, 10% to 15%, 20% to 60%, % to 40 or 40% to 50% in bandwidth utilization. Figure 6 illustrates an exemplary differential data transmission process, according to certain embodiments. In Figure 6, Node A is a temperature sensor. The first step is to set a wake-up time for node A (for example, wake-up at time t-20). Then the next step is to measure temperature, here 10 bits, then send packet (for example, on channel 2, time slot 3) to node B and finally put node A into a sleep mode. Node B is a current sensor. The first step is to wake up Node B and instruct it to listen for information sent from node A, for example, on channel 2, time slot 3. The next step is to synchronize the clock based on received frame, and then measure the current (10 bits) and then append the measured data and send on channel to node C, for example, channel 3, time slot 5. Node C is a temperature sensor in the same room as node A. The first step is to instruct node C to wake-up and listen on a channel, for example, channel 3, time slot 5. The next step is to synchronise the clock based on received frame; measure temperature on Node C; extract measurement of node A (i.e. extract 10 bits starting from bit 16) and calculate the difference, encode as 4 bits. Node C then send the information via a packet on a channel, for example, channel 2, time slot 3 and then instructs node C to sleep. This way node C reports its temperature as a 4 bit value, instead of 10 bit value. When aggregated, for example, in pressure sensors on a pipe this can results in significant reduction in bandwidth requirements.

[ODI701 Embeddingl ACK / NACK Into Packet Routing 100171] In certain applications when command is sent to the controller it may be desirable to confirm delivery. In certain embodiments, ACK / NACK may be sent as one bit (in certain applications). In other embodiments, ACK / NACK may be sent as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. This is possible if a command to a node on downlink is followed by the packet going through the node on the up-link. The at least one configuration computer may take this bandwidth saving opportunity into account during the configuration stage. In certain embodiments, the bandwidth saving may be at least %, 49%, 45%, 30%, 20%, 15% or 12.5%. In certain embodiments, the bandwidth saving maybe between 40% to 50%,35%to 45%, 20% to 40% or 10%to 20%. Figure 7 illustrates an exemplary process for embedding ACK, according to certain embodiments. In this example, commands are sent to nodes A, B and C. Node A receives the command correctly and as being the last node on the route embeds ACK as one bit into the data on the up-link. node B receives the up-link packet from node A, sees that ACK is embedded and does not add its own ACK. node C does the same. When packet is received at central computer and data is parsed, the central computer sees that node C has responded with ACK, therefore nodes B and C also received their commands correctly.

[00172] Suppressed ACK 1001731 Certain embodiments enable further conservation of bandwidth when a packet containing information for more than one node is sent and the confirmation is required. In certain embodiments, the bandwidth saving may be at least %, 49%, 45%, 30%, 20%, 15% or 12.5%. In certain embodiments, the bandwidth saving may be between 40% to 50%, 35% to 45%, 20% to 40% or 10% to 20%. These bandwidth savings are in addition to bandwidth savings from suppressed headers and addresses. For example, assume route with six hops. Information is ready for substantial portion (or all) the devices on the route at substantially the same time (or the same time). Figure 8 illustrates an exemplary format for accomplishing this, according to certain embodiments. Figure 9 illustrates what happens in an exemplary six hop process, according to certain embodiments. 1001741 In certain applications, the system may be configured in such a way that a substantial portion (or every) node receives its command with a delay of num-hops*time-slotsize. The ACK from the last node is received with substantially the same delay or the same delay. In this example, only the last node in the route generates ACK, the rest will just forward it. In other examples, where the last node is not required to respond, in these cases other nodes up the chain may generate an ACK. When the gateway receives the ACK from the last node in the packet, it knows that a substantial portion (or all) of the nodes referenced in that packet successfully received the command. One advantage of this approach is that ACKs are not aggregating or the amount of aggregating of ACKs is reduced. In this example, the number of ACKs received is equal to amount of packets sent, not to the amount of devices the commands were sent to. So in this example, only 3 ACKs (each one can be just I bit) are received, compared to the traditional approach where 6 ACKs will be received. This allows a significant reduction in the bandwidth in large networks. For example, suppose there are 1000 controllers (designated nO to n999). 100m apart forming 100 km line. The command for each controller is 8 bit. The latency for receiving a command is 1.1 sec. The latency for receiving ACK is 2.1 sec. Commands for the controllers are issued at once (or substantially at once), The sec latency limits the sets the time slot to maximum of I msec. Assume the net rate of 100 kbps. This allows the packing of 12 commands in one time slot. The system will receive only 84 ACKs instead of 1000 ACKs. In certain embodiments, the bandwidth saving may be at least be at least 50%, 49%, 45%, 30%, 20%, 15% or 12.5%. In certain embodiments, the bandwidth saving may be between 40% to 50%, 35% to 45%, 20% to 40% or 10% to 20%. These provide further bandwidth savings in addition to those from suppressed headers and addresses. {00175] Retransmission

[00176] The retransmission may be implemented in a number of ways or combinations of ways. For example, by local retransmission. Consecutive nodes on the up-link are places two slots apart (first slot can be much shorter). A common resource (i.e., channel) may be allocated for retransmissions. Assume that node A is transmitting to node B. If node B does not receive a packet (or receives corrupted packet) it requests the retransmission on the reserved channel. Node A retransmits the packet on the reserve channel. Node B can use data from first and second transmissions to retrieve original data. Node B then forwards the received information. Another example is by centralized retransmission. The network is divided in two regions, for example, far end: no resource limitation and near end: multiple paths. With respect to Multiple paths, in certain applications, the retransmission request is propagated down the tree (branching nodes are listening to broadcast from the parent node). The request contains channel and time slot for retransmission. The system reserves predefined resources (i.e., 5%, 8%, 10%, 12% or 15%) for retransmission (for example, reserving time slots on certain channel). With respect to the far end in certain applications always retransmit - energy insensitive applications or the NACK approach - energy sensitive applications. As an example, current meter can send its last measurement 3 times if it's located 100 (or 20, 40, 75, 200, 1000, 10000) hops from the gateway. The battery powered device will only retransmit if it receives a NACK

[00177] Bandwidth Consideration

[00178] In certain applications, the system may be used in low-bandwidth application. Low-bandwidth applications may transmit and/or receive packets of 1, 8, 16, 32, 128, 512, 1024 or 16384 bits of data. Or they may transmit/receive with average baud rate of0.016, 0.133, 0.266, 0.8, 1.6, 8, 32, 128, 512, 1024 or 16384 bits per second.

In certain applications, the requirement for average data rate may be determined by whichever is smaller: the bandwidth available at gateway or the bandwidth available for a particular route. For example, if the available data rate (on the up-link) at gateway is 100 kbps and there are 10,000 devices that transmit then average data rate may be less than 10 bps. The gateway may have multiple transceivers and may work in full duplex (on different channels) thus increasing its capacity. With respect to the bandwidth available for a particular route, an example would be assumed that a substantial portion of the devices (or each device) is operating at around 100 kbps, half duplex and the route is 1,000 hops long. The average data rate may be less than 50 bps. 1001791 Certain embodiments are directed to adjusting the configuration of the system in dense networks. Also the available bandwidth at gateway may limit the peak data rate of the network system. If there are large numbers of devices located in close proximity to other devices in the network, it may be more difficult to allocate resources within the network without creating potential interference issues. One approach to reduce this interference issue is to reduce the transmitting power of one or more of the devices. This reduces the number of neighbors seen by a device. The cost is increased due to the number of hops, however, the benefit is that the network can be adjusted to new requirements with a reduced need to alter the infrastructure (for example, installing additional access points). 1001801 Reuse of the Resources 1001811 Traditional access points and/or cellular systems have to use different resources (frequency channels, spreading sequences) in adjacent cells to avoid interference. This is illustrated in Figure 10. Normally a reuse factor of 4 is used. In reality, however, a more complicated frequency planning is required due to non homogenous propagation. The problem becomes even more difficult when cells are adjacent in 3D space. Multistory buildings complicate this problem even more as path loss and interference will be determined not only by 3D geometry but also by internal structure of the building. Installing large number of sensors in multistory building may either require complicated resource allocation or reducing system capacity to create redundant resources.

[001821 While number of nodes in traditional system may be limited by peak bandwidth, the centralised system configuration of certain disclosed embodiments enables the system to operate at average bandwidth closer to system capacity. Assume a system comprised of 1,000 devices. At peak, 100 devices can transmit simultaneously.

To accommodate peak requirements, the traditional system will need to employ some form of collision resolution. Let's assume that collision resolution for 100 devices requires 150 time slots. It means that system is only capable of working at 66% of its capacity. In contrast, certain disclosed embodiments that use a centralised system that evenly distributes (or substantially evenly distribute) those devices, so that only one device can transmit at any given time, may operate at 90%, 95%, 98% , 99% or 100% capacity.

[001831 When many devices are placed in close proximity to each other, they may create interference even if operating on different channels. Even if adjacent channel rejection is high (for example 60 dB), it may still limit device sensitivity, thus limiting the range or overall system bandwidth. Figure I Iillustrates this problem: Node A transmits to node B on channel 1, at the same time as C transmits to D on channel 2. Node C will jam node B as some power from channel 2 will appear on channel 1. Figure 12 illustrate a process for removing or reducing adjunct channel interference, according to certain embodiments. In certain embodiments, interference between devices in the network may be reduced by having Node A to transmit a preamble (say 4 symbols) followed by no signal followed by data. Node C transmits a preamble during no signal period. This allows Node B to synchronize properly. This can also be achieved by node B cleaning the preamble by subtracting known interferer C. This can also be achieved by synchronizing node B previously. Node B forwards received raw data (without decoding). The central computer receives the raw data received at node B, knowing that it was received in presence of interferer C. It knows the data that was transmitted by C. It calculates how the data transmitted by C appeared on the adjacent channel (seen by B). The raw data received by B is then cleaned by subtracting the unintended jammer C.

[00184] Security

[001851 In certain applications, security may be a desirable feature within the network. In certain embodiments, a portion, substantial portion or each device may be provided with a sufficiently unique key. The key may be shared with the central computer (in case of symmetrical cypher) or pair of private - public keys (for asymmetrical cypher) may be used. A pseudo random key may be generated for each transmission/reception using the unique device key as a seed. Data may be encrypted using stream cypher. Data is decrypted at the central computer. Time delayed key generation may be used to further improve security. Other security structures or process may also be used.

[00186J In certain applications, it is desirable to maintain a substantially secure link, a sufficiently secure link or a secure link between certain devices in the network and the central computer. Substantially secure link is a link that provides substantial data integrity and / or substantial data confidentiality and / or substantial data availability. In certain networks, it is desirable to maintain a secure link (either directly or indirectly) between at least 50%, 75%, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%, 98%, 99% or 100% of the devices in the network and/or the central computer. In order to maintain secure links, information transmitted (by the device and central computer) can be encrypted and authenticated.

[00187] In certain applications, one or more of the following: the system, the network system, system participants, may detect at least one security threats and may fall into a predefined state upon detecting the at least one security threat.

[00188] In certain embodiments the security threat may be detected by one or more of the following: receiving a predefined number of consecutive packets with incorrect authentication, receiving a predefined percentage of packets with incorrect authentication, not receiving predefined number of consecutive packets, not receiving a predefined percentage of packets. 1001891 In certain embodiments falling back to the default state may include one or more of the following: erasing the configuration of an individual participant, advancing security keys, changing security keys, waiting to be reconfigured.

[00190] In certain embodiments the central computer may perform one or more of the following actions upon detecting the security threat: remove a participant or plurality of participants from the network, advance their security keys, change their security keys, delaying participants' reconfiguration for a predefined period of time,

[00191] In certain embodiments the central computer may be one or more of the following: at least one computer, at least one computing device, a plurality of computers, a plurality of computing devices, a plurality of computers where a portion of the plurality of computers are capable to send and/or receive data from at least one computer, a plurality of computing devices where a portion of the plurality of computing devices are capable to send and/or receive data from at least one computing device.

[00192) In certain embodiments, participant may be one or more of the following: a device, a gateway, a router, access point and some other participant.

[001931 For illustrative purposes, it is assumed that the device receives 8 bits of data and transmits 8 bits of data. Other packet sizes can be used and can vary with time.

[00194] Shared keys and one time pads

[00195] The individual device or plurality of devices is pre-programmed with a secret key and/or secret seed value used to derive the secret key. The individual device generates a one-time key (pad) for the received/transmitted data using Deterministic Random Bit Generator (DRBG). In certain implementations, a portion or a substantial portion DRBGs may be implemented as described in NIST SP 800-90A. DRGB may also be implemented as a shift register with feedback. The central computer generates the one-time key (pad) for the individual device for the data it sends to the individual device and/or receives from the individual device, thus generating symmetrical with the individual device key. 100196] The following keys may be generated: Kr - one-time key used to decrypt received data Ki - one time key used to encrypt data that will be transmitted Ks - one-time key used to sign the transmitted digest Notations: Vn = DRBG(K,IV), Vn - random value generated at n-th call to DRBG function, K - pre-programmed secret key. IV - initialisation value. Sb = CMAC(M,K,R), Sb - signature on message M, M - message to be signed, K - secret key, R - one-time random value. Sp = PRIVATE(Kpr, M, R), Sp - signature on the message, M - message, Kpr - private key, R - random value. The function performs private KPI operation on message digest. Sp = PUBLIC(Kpb, S, R), Sp - result of public KPI operation on S, S signature, R - random number. Key K can be primary key and/or derived key, foo1971 In certain applications, CMAC is one of the implementations described in NIST SP 800-38B. 1001981 Configuration

[001991 In certain applications, at configuration stage the individual device is provided with 128-bit long (other lengths can be used) random numbers: IVr, lVt, LVu, lVd, IV. The individual device is also provided with public key (Kpb). The public key may be configured to be unique for a substantially portion of the down-routes or each down-route. Initial configuration upload may be performed over secure channel. The secure channel may be established by a suitable mechanism (for example, Deffie Hellman). The data may be encrypted and authenticated. 1002001 In certain embodiments the individual device may implement a master DRBG that uses the initially preprogramed key and/or random value. The master DRBG then may be used to derive secret values that may be used as keys or as seed values for new set of DRBGs,

[00201) In certain embodiments the central computer may implement a plurality of master DRBGs that use the initially preprogramed keys and/or random values, The master DRBGs then may be used to derive secret values that may be used as keys or as seed values for new set of DRBGs. These DRBGs may run in parallel with the individual devices and may produce symmetric keys. 1002021 Down Link 100203] With respect to encryption and message signing, at the time slots that the central computer sends data, the central computer generates one-time random key for the device Kd = DRBG(KVt). It then XORs the key with the data, Ed = Ksc XOR D. Where D is the data to be sent. The message is signed using private key.

[00204 With respect to decryption and authentication, for the packet, the device generates one-time random key that is symmetrical to the one generated by the central computer Kd=DRBG(K,IVt). The device generates a random number R=DRBG(KlVd). The device verifies message integrity and authenticity using route public key and random number R. If successful, the device then decrypts the message using the generated one-time key. After a predefined number of consecutive failures or a predefined percentage of failures over predefined number of packets, the device will erase its configuration and wait for reconfiguration. Figure 37 depicts encryption and authentication-down link, sending data from the central computer, according to certain embodiments. Figure 38 depicts encryption and authentication-down link, receiving data, according to certain embodiments. f002051 Uplink

[00206] For the packet, the device generates one-time random key Ku=rDRBG(K,Vr). It then XORs the data with the key. The device that receives a packet on the up-link and appends its encrypted data. The device generates one-time random key Ks=DRBG(K,IVu), random value R DRBG(K,IVrand). The devices computes SI = CMAC(D,Ks,R), where D is the data to be sent, S Iis XORed with received signature. The result replaces received signature. The central computer generates corresponding symmetrical keys and random numbers for the device on the route. It then verifies and decrypts the data and verifies its validity. After receiving a predefined number of invalid packets, where the predefined number of invalid packets may be consecutive or within a predefined number of packets, from one or more devices, the central computer may reconfigure the network as if those devices were dropped off the network. Those devices may be put in the black list and reconfigured after a predefined time. Devices in the black list may have a count of number of times they were reconfigured due to erratic behaviour. Bigger numbers may be used to increase time until the next reconfiguration. Figure 39 shows the process of receiving the data from child device, appending data and forwarding the packet using the above security mechanism, according to certain embodiments.

[002071 Maintenance Commands and Responses

[002081 In certain applications, maintenance commands and/or responses to and from configured devices may be encrypted and authenticated in a substantially similar or the same way as data. In other embodiments maintenance commands and/or responses to and from configured devices may be encrypted and authenticated using other mechanism, for example those listed in NIST-SP-800-38(A,B and D).

[00209] Attacks

[002101 In certain applications, one of the attacks that may need to be addressed is a man-in-the-middle attack where the keys are known. It is reasonable to assume that in most devices, the keys will be stored in FLASH or RAM, It is therefore feasible to retrieve the keys and insert a malicious device that will facilitate man-in-the middle attack presenting itself as a genius device, The architectures disclosed herein make these types of attacks much less likely as data integrity and authenticity is much better guaranteed on up and down links and during device configuration, Encrypting data during configuration stage in some applications is only necessary to obscure network architecture. In some cases it may be omitted. 1002111 Block Cypher APproach 100212] In certain embodiments it may be desired to implement the security using only block cypher. It may be desirable for one or more of the following reasons: block cyphers typically require less computational resources than Public Key

Cryptography, block cyphers may be used to implement DRBGs, certain functions may be implemented in hardware, for example AES.

[00213] In certain embodiments block cypher may be used to perform at least a substantial portion of the operations. This approach may be beneficial as the cryptic operations can be performed fast using security coprocessor (for example, AES 128), In certain applications, a useful block cypher is one of the block cyphers approved by NIST. For illustrative purposes, the 128 bit block is assumed, other block sizes may also be used,

[00214] Notation:

[00215] Drk - historical data received from the individual device by central computer. If at the time slot the central computer receives 8 bits of data from the individual device k, Dre may be a record of last I byte, last 2 bytes, last 4 bytes, last 8 bytes or last 16 received bytes. If packet is not received or received in error, zero byte may be inserted.

[00216] Drc - historical data received by the individual device from central computer. If at the time slot the individual device k receives 8 bits of data, Drc may be a record of 1 byte, last 2 bytes, last 4 bytes, last 8 bytes or last 16 received bytes. If packet is not received or received in error, zero byte may be inserted. 1002171 Rs - one-time random value.

[00218] Configuration (00219] In certain applications, at configuration stage the individual device may be provided with 128-bit long (other lengths can be used) random numbers: IVr, IVt, IVs, Vts. Initial configuration upload may be performed over secure channel. The secure channel may be established by suitable mechanisms (for example, Deffile Hellman or CMAC). The data may be encrypted and authenticated,

[002201 In certain embodiment, the individual device may derive keys and random values form at least one DRBG The central computer may also derive keys and random values form at least one DRBG thus creating a symmetrical with the individual device keys. The symmetrical keys may be used for encryption and/or decryption of the configuration data. The configuration data may include maintenance data. The random values and symmetrical keys may be used to sign the data.

[00221] Down Link

[002221 In certain applications at suitable time slots the central computer sends data, the central computer generates one-time random key for the relevant individual devices Ksc = DRBG(K,Vt). It then XORs last 8 bits of the key with 8 bits of data, Ed = Ksc XOR D. Where D is the data to be sent. The central computer and the device generate one time random value, This value may be used as IV. The block may be signed using appropriate CMAC. If there are unused slots in a packet, a number of bytes from the signature may be embedded into those slots. Next packets may contain one or more bytes of the signature. The individual device verifies received command by verifying the signature. At least one correct byte from the signature may be received before the command is executed. The individual device may be configured to reject the command if it receives less than specified number of signature bytes. The individual device may be configured to reject the command if it receives at least one packet with incorrect signature.

[002231 If the individual device receives a predefined number of consecutive packets, or a predefined percentage of packets, with wrong signature, the individual device may fall back into default state or other predefined state, the individual device may disconnect from the network and may wait to be reconfigured. Figure 40 and Figure 41 depict the process of sending the command followed by signature bytes. It is also possible to have one time random dictionary. In this case, key may not be retrieved even if the data is known. Using dictionary may also increase number of bits that need to be guessed. If, for example, the device C has only four states (effectively requiring two bits) but 7 bit command is used and C is only reachable through B. Let's assume that the attacker retrieved B's keys. Let's assume the attacker knows that C is in state 00. To send a message, A generates one time random key, xors it with data (00) and sends to C. As B knows the state of C, it can retrieve the one time key. It can then encrypt erroneous information (11) with this key, forcing C into state 11. The attacker will then need to guess the first byte of the signature. If one time random dictionary is used, the attacker may need to guess 5 more bits.

[00224] Up-link

[00225] In certain applications, the process is similar to the one outlined herein except that Drc is embedded in the signature. Figure 42 depicts the process of receiving data on the downlink and embedding the received data (signature of the received data) into the up-link signature, according to certain embodiments. The central computer may verify that the data received by the individual device matches the data that was sent to the individual device, This also may eliminate the need for ACK. This ensures that central computer detects man-in-the-middle attack on the downlink on the next uplink packet.

[00226] In certain embodiments a substantial portion of the individual devices on a route may XOR signature on the data sent on the uplink with the received signature, thus forming a combined signature.

[00227] In certain embodiments a substantial portion of the individual devices on a route may XOR signature on the data sent on the uplink with the signature on the historical data received on the downlink and then with the received signature, thus forming a combined signature. 1002281 In certain embodiments, the central computer may use the combined signature to detect broken link. The central computer may use other information to assist with detection of broken links, as further explained herein.

[002291 In certain embodiments, the network key may be used to sign downlink data. The network key may be shared by one or more of the following: portion of the plurality of devices, a substantial portion of the plurality of devices, a portion of the devices on a route, a substantial portion of the devices on a route, a portion of the devices connected to a gateway, a substantial portion of the devices connected to a gateway, portion of the plurality of devices located in the same geographic area, portion of the plurality of devices having at least one connon property, for example being a temperature sensor 1002301 Synchronization 1002311 If a device is rebooted it may need to be resynchronize to the network, In certain embodiments, the synchronization may be implemented in a number of ways, for example, dedicated sync may be propagated through the network with certain period (ie, every few seconds). The sync may contain the time slot it is transmitted on as well, The sync may contain the address or signature of the sending device. This address or signature can be used to reject unintended sync packets. Another example is the device uses its own configuration to achieve synchronization, The device will listen on a channel carrying most traffic (from device's perspective). The device may receive a packet and based on packet length may map the time slots that it can be receiving on. Reception of subsequent packets may narrow the search down until the device finally founds the time slot it is receiving on. Another example is the time slot number may be embedded into the packet. In certain applications, combinations of resynchronize devices in the network may be used as well as other resynchronize processes. 1002321 Un-even Bandwidth Allocation

[00233) In certain embodiments, the network system may be configured to accommodate devices with various bandwidth requirements. For example, devices transmitting I kbit every second and devices transmitting 1 bit every second. Figure 13 illustrates an even resource allocation for a particular device, according to certain embodiments. Figure 14 illustrates an uneven resource allocation for a particular device, according to certain embodiments. Figure 14 also depicts a system where one device consumes majority of the system resources. In these examples, frequency and time division is assumed, however other methods and their combination can be used (i.e. CDM, TDM, OFDM, etc.) 1002341 Mesh Network Self Configuration 1002351 Certain embodiments are directed to network systems that are capable, or substantially capable, of self-configuration. Network self-configuration is desirable as it does not require external resources (human and/or non-human) in certain applications. Certain applications may be self-configuring, or substantially self configuring, with limited, or reduced, need for external resources (human and/or non human). In certain applications, network self-configuration can also be used to extend existing network, stitch a number of networks together. It also provides basis for self healing in certain applications.

[002361 Self-healing is desirable in mesh networks as it improves robustness and/or reliability by rerouting traffic to take into account introduced changes. The changes can be in form of faulty device (or number of devices), change in link or links conditions (as a result of external factors or as a result planned changes, for example, changing location of some of the devices) or combinations of these factors or other factors.

[00237] In certain disclosed embodiments, to allow self-configuration, a certain percent of resources may be allocated for network maintenance. In certain exemplary embodiments, the amount of resources allocated for maintenance may be relatively low. In certain applications the amount of allocated resources of the network for maintenance is typically less than 10%, 8%, 5%, 3%, 2%, 1%, 0.75%,0.5%, 0:25%, ,1%, 0.05%, 0.025%, 0.01%, 0.005%, 0.0025% or 0.00125%. In certain applications, the amount of allocated resources of the network for maintenance is typically in the range of 10% to 0.00125%, 5% to 0,5%, 3% to 0.25%, 2% to 0.2%, 1% to 0,00125%, 1% to 0.0025%,0.5% to 0.00125% or 0,25% to 0.00125%. 100238) In some embodiments the self-healing can be improved by planning resource allocation in a way that some / substantial portion / all of the links can be corrected by reconfiguring one or minimal amount of devices.

[002391 In some embodiments it is beneficial to have a network where nodes comprising the network are completely or substantially unaware of network structure. This is beneficial because it allows to repair broken links by re-routing traffic by updating configuration in only one or substantially small portion of devices. 100240] In exemplary embodiments, the self-configuration process is originated and managed by at least one central computer/controller. In other embodiments the self-configuration process can be originated by adding new devices, change in parameters of the device on the network (for example changing time between succeeding measurements), removal of the device from the network, change in RF conditions (presence of interferer, change in link quality). For example, the resources allocated for network maintenance are: certain time slots on predefined channel. These time slots can change as network configuration is changing. Other forms of resources can be allocated for network maintenance, for example: spreading codes and/or frequency bins in FDD. For example a spreading code may be reserved for network maintenance, In this example, these maintenance slots are used to communicate with new (un configured) devices. The new devices may or may not be aware of the existence of those time slots. In this example, there are two types of maintenance time slots: transmit slot (MT) and receive slot (MR). However, other types of maintenance time slots can be used, for example, transmit and receive time slot, where devices use CSMA to transmit.

[00241] In this exemplary, a set of commands are used to exchange information between devices. It should be understood that other methods or commands and other formats can be used. For example devices may "publish" themselves at preprogrammed intervals, or a state machine may be used instead of command-response method. The commands are: PUBLISH - this is the request to the device transmit its address or signature, so that other devices can measure the link quality between then and the transmitting device. READ RSSITABLE - this is the request to read link qualities obtained by listening to the transmitting devices. WRITE - this is the request to write new configuration.

READCRC - this is the request to read CRC of written data. Other ways, or combinations of ways, of checking validity of the data may be employed instead of CRC, for example, hash and/or signature. ACTIVATE - this is the request to switch to a new configuration. 1002421 In this exemplary, to send data to the devices inside existing network, unused bytes are used to carry information. The maintenance command is embedded in down-link. The response is carried using unused bytes in the packet and/or unused bytes. Table 1 depicts embedding maintenance command into downlink. Parsing Dev 0 Dev 3 Dev 1 Dev 7 Dev 5 Dev 2 Dev 4 Dev 6 Dev 8 Datal C 0 10 C 10 0 C 0 Data2 C MO M1 C M2 M3 M4 C M5 Table 1

[00243] Parsing shows the parsing rule for given downlink, in this example., byte 0 is intended to device 0, byte I is intended to device 3, etc. C - designates command to certain device. In this example, commands are sent to devices 0, 6 and 7. Mn - designates byte number n of maintenance command. Datal - is data that would be sent if there is no maintenance command to be sent. Data2 - is data that contains maintenance command embedded in it. Other data sizes than byte can be used, i.e., 10 bits, 16 bits, etc.

[00244] The maintenance commands for devices configured on the network in this example are: PUBLISH - the device transmits it's address or signature during next time slot MT. RELAY - the device transmits the data that follows RELAY command during time slot MT. READRSSI- this is a request to read link quality between this device and other device. WRITE - this is the request to write new configuration. READCRC - this is the request to read CRC of written data. 100245] Other ways of checking validity of the data may be employed instead of CRC, for example, hash and/or signature. For example hash value can be generated using SHA- algorithm (or any other hash value generating algorithm) and / or a signature can be generated, preferably (but not limited to) using methods outlined in NIST-SP-800-38B.

[002461 ACTIVATE - this is the request to switch to a new configuration.

(002471 Figure 29 depicts a flow chart of the self-configuration process, according to certain embodiments. It is to be understood that other processes for self configuration can be used in certain embodiments that are not limited to the flow chart depicted in Figure 29. For example, network topology may be inferred based on device location in addition or instead of received signal strength. Or relay devices (used to talk to new devices) can be selected based on location or other information (for example order of installation).

[00248] In this example, new devices are listening on the maintenance channel and record link quality for a substantial portion of, a suitable portion of, or all the devices that they have heard publishing themselves. New device publish itself on the next (or otherwise defined) timeslot. Existing devices (devices configured on the network) are listening on the MR slot and record link quality for the devices they can hear. Device that relays the request, forward the data received on MR time slot back to the central controller. Once information re new neighbours is available, it is passed to resource allocator and a new configuration is generated.

[002491 In this example, devices are activated in the following order: first new devices, then existing devices starting from most remote from gateway devices (measured by number of hops). Other activation orders can also be used in certain applications. In other embodiments devices can be configured in random order. Once device is activated it synchronizes to the newly configured network and waits for START command. This is done to prevent erratic behaviour while certain of the devices may not be switched to a new configuration.

[002501 Another exemplary alternative way of activation is as follows: After receiving activation command, device stores the new configuration, but keeps operating using an old configuration. After activation command has been sent to a substantial portion, a suitable portion or all of the devices that need to be reconfigured, the devices will operate using the old configuration until it misses (or receives incorrect) a packet. After that, it will switch to a new configuration and wait for the sync packet on downlink. The device is programmed with an ID of the parent device. The sync packet contains sync signature and device ID. 100251) In this example, the network is fully functional during reconfiguration stage (apart from activation stage, where existing devices will disappear from the network and then reappear in new configuration).

1002521 Figure 30 depicts the process of configuring the network from scratch, according to certain embodiments. Initially, the network is comprised of only one device - the gateway (square). Figure 31 illustrates the first round of self configuration where the devices within one hop from the gateway are added to the network, according to certain embodiments. Filled circles represent devices on the network, empty circles represent new devices that are not yet configured. Figure 32 shows the process of adding more devices to the existing network, according to certain embodiments,

[00253] Forward configuration

[002541 In certain applications, in order to reduce one or more of the following: the amount of maintenance traffic, speed-up configuration and self-healing process, it is desirable to configure (or change configuration) of only new (or affected) nodes. This can be accomplished if nodes are basically unaware of the network topology, In certain applications, the nodes do not need to be aware of the network topology to correctly process downlink, as the nodes are configured to extract the relevant information from the packet. In certain applications, a substantial portion of the nodes are configured to extract the relevant information from the packet. In certain applications, each node is configured to extract the relevant information from the packet. So new devices may be added to the packet, as depicted in Figure 33, according to certain embodiments.

[00255] In order to reduce the amount of maintenance traffic and speed-up configuration and self-healing process, it is desirable to configure (or change configuration) only new (or affected) nodes. This can be accomplished if nodes are completely unaware of network topology. The nodes do not need to be aware of network topology to correctly process downlink, as each node is configured to extract only relevant information from the packet. So new devices can be simply added to the packet, as depicted in Figure 33. 1002561 In certain applications, the up-link may be handled by working out the correct set of signatures. Figure 34 shows an exemplary up-link packet sent from the gateway towards central computer, according to certain embodiments. Figure 34 illustrates an uplink packet with no broken links. The signature may be made up by XORing individual signatures. Figure 35 depicts the process of detecting the broken link (missing nodes), according to certain embodiments. In Figure 35, the process shows the uplink packet with one broken link. The missing nodes may be determined by excluding the nodes to match the received signature. One implementation is to try out combinations of broken links until the correct signature is achieved. Other implementations may include: random walk, sorting potential broken links based on link quality and / or past experience. For example: if link between node 5 and 6 is broken, then data from both 6 and 7 will be missing. The packet length can also be used in determination of broken links. For example, if link between node 5 and 6 is broken and each devices transmits I byte, the received packet length will be 6 bytes instead of 8. Knowing that packet length is 6 bytes in this case can be used to narrow down the search, for example link between I and 3 cannot be broken, as it would result in packet length of 4 bytes. To limit the computational complexity the amount of broken links may be limited to predefined number. For example, in certain embodiments, the number of broken links may be limited to 2, 4, 8, 20 or 100. In other embodiments, the number of broken links may be limited to 0.01%, 0.1%, 1%, 2%,5% or 20% of total links in the network. In other embodiments, the number of broken links may be limited to 0.01%, 0.1%, 1%, 2%,5%,20% or 50% of selected links in the network.

[00257] Figure 36 depicts the process of repairing the broken link, according to certain embodiments. Tables 2 and 3 show resource allocation before and after the link is repaired, according to certain embodiments. The rows correspond to time slots and columns correspond to frequency channels. In this case only node 4 needs to be reconfigured. Od 2d Id d 3d 4d 6d 7d

4u 7u 6u 3u 5u 2u

Ou Table 2 Resource allocation Number I

Od

5d3d 6d

7d 4d

4u

7u 6u 3u Su 2u lu Ou Table 3 Resource allocation number 2

100258] Self-healing 100259] In certain applications, the self-configuration process can be used as part of a self-healing process for the network. For example, the central computer/controller detects devices that have dropped off the network (as it ceased to receive data from those devices). The devices in turn detect that they have ceased to be part of the network (as they have ceased to receive data). The device will erase its configuration after an unsuccessful attempt to resynchronise to the network. From this point the device will reappear as new device to the network and the central computer will proceed with self-configuration. Alternatively, the device may wait for the link to be repaired. The device may wait for a predefined time or a predefined number of time slots or a combination of them. Then it will erase its configuration. For example if link between device 4 and device 5 is broken, as shown in figure 44, device 8 will also drop off the network. Device 8 then waits for the link to be repaired. The link is repaired by reconfiguring device number 4.

[00260) Addressine methods

[00261] In one embodiment the device might be addressed by predefined byte or word offset within timeslot, for example device receives 100 bytes and extracts bytes from 6 to 8. In another embodiment the device might be addressed by predefined bit offset within timeslot, for example device receives 100 bytes and extracts bites from 72 to 84. In another embodiment the device might be addressed by combining predefined offset within timeslot with very short / short or full address, for example device receives 100 bytes and extracts bytes from 6 to 8 if byte 5 matches its address, Another example: device receives 100 bytes and extracts bites from82 to 94 if bit 81 equals to 1. Other embodiments may use offsets in spreading sequence and / or in frequency hopping sequence by itself or in combination with offset within timeslot.

[002621 Selective data transmission

1002631 In certain applications, selective data transmission may be beneficial, for example, in cases where:_the change in state (the necessity to provide an updated information) of the devices is less frequent; only one (or a few) devices may transmit new information simultaneously; and/or a portion of the network or the entire network needs to operate at low duty cycle (for example, to prolong the battery life). In selective data transmission, the device may transmit very short messages (for example, 1, 2, 3 or 4 bits) indicating the OK (or good ) status. There may be predefined messages (e.g., type of messages that may contain variable payload). The device may report change in its state (including not receiving data from devices routed through it) by sending a message. The central computer may acknowledge the change and optionally specify a period of time during which the device is not allowed to transmit the change in its state. This may prevent unstable events from cluttering the network. In certain applications, it is possible that several devices may append their messages up to predefined length. The length can be the same across all the devices or different for each / substantial portion of / some device(s). For example device located 50 hops from the gateway may append data if the packet it received from its predecessor is less than 10 bytes; the device located 10 hops from gateway may append data if the packet it received from its predecessor is less than 80 bytes.

[00264] For example a series of sensors along the pipeline. In this exemplary, the following assumptions are made: 250 kbps channels

Sensor every 50 meters

Average RF link distance: 200m

Sensor receives and transmits one timeslot (uplink and downlink) every 30 seconds.

Maximum bytes per time slot: 110

Timeslot: 4 msec

Typical battery life (CR2450): 7 years

Pipeline: 500 km long (2,500 hops, 10,000 sensors)

Delay: 10-40 sec (from the actual event)

[00265 Table 4 below depicts the process of OK status propagating through the network. The X indicates ok status. Device A sends "ok". Device B receives it, recognises it as "ok" packet and if its own state is "ok" as well sends "ok" packet further. Table 5 shows reporting of disconnected node (sub-route), the address of the node that did not receive the packet together with the time-slot of missed packet (required to identify node A) is propagated through the network. Device B did not receive packet from A, therefore it sends a packet containing address of B and possibly and error code. The central computer works out that device A did not send data.Table 6 shows a propagation of a change of status of device A. Device C has changed status as well and appends its status to the packet. The change is acknowledged on downlink, preventing A and C to report new status again (allowing other nodes to report their statuses if changed). Timeslots 0 1 2 .. 75000 Device A X_ X Device B Device C Table 4 - Devices along one route, status OK

Time slots 0 1 2 .7 75000 Device A Device B L B Device C Table 5 - Devices along one route, missed 3 packets in a row from A

Time slots 0 1 2 ... 75000 Device A A Device B A Device C AjC Table 6 - Devices along one route, A and C reporting new status

100266) RF scanning

[002671 The device can periodically scan RF channels. This information is then conveyed to the central computer. The central computer can use this information to allocate or re-allocate resources to avoid or minimize interference. Figure 43 depicts the process. Initially device 4 was transmitting to device 5 on channel 10. During periodic scan, device 5 detected interference on channel 10. The central computer reallocated resources and changed the channel to be channel 5, thus avoiding interference.

[002681 In certain embodiments the link quality is used as one (or the only one) of the parameters that determine path allocation. In multi-hop networks it may be desirable to have better quality links close to gateway. This may be desirable as it reduces overall packet loss in the system. In such an embodiments, the weight assigned to link quality will increase as number of hops to gateway decreases.

[002691 Synchronisation in multi-gateway environment and synchronisation of adjacent independent networks.. It may be desirable or necessary to avoid or minimize interference between adjacent networks, In certain embodiments this can be achieved by treating adjacent networks as parts of a bigger network. The gateways are synchronized and resources are allocated so that adjacent devices (connected to different gateways) do not interfere with each other.

[002701 Gateway Synchronization of At Least Two Networks

[002711 In certain applications, there may be at least two networks, wherein the networks have a plurality of devices. There may also be situations where you have multiply networks, for example, at least two, three, or four networks. The at least first network may have one or more of the following: a gateway, an access point and a router. The at least second network may have one or more of the following: a gateway, an access point and a router. In certain applications, one of the networks may not have one or more of the following: a gateway, an access point and a router in these situation this network may be treated as part of another network that does have one or more of the following: a gateway, an access point and a router. A portion of the devices from the at least first network is located in such proximity to the portion of the devices from the at least the second network that the portion of the devices from the at least first network is capable of interfering with portion of the devices from the at least second network, The potential interference may be substantially minimized or sufficiently avoided by making the at least first network and the at least second network to operate synchronously or substantially synchronously, and by allocating resources used by at least a portion of the devices from the at least first network and at least a portion of the devices from the at least second network so that in a substantial amount of occasions resources used by at least a portion of the devices from the first network are different from the resources used by at least a portion of the devices from the second network,

[002721 There may be applications where it may be desirable to synchronize two or more networks. Network synchronization may be achieved by having at least one device from network A listen to one or more timeslots on network B; recording time offsets and conveying this data to the at least one other device from Network A or a gateway A from Network A. The at least one gateway A from Network A, then adjusts its timing.

[00273] In certain applications, network synchronization may be used to significantly reduce or substantially avoid interference between a portion of the devices in one network and a portion of the devices in an another network.

[00274] In certain applications, networks may contain none, one or more of the following: gateway, access point and a router.

[002751 In certain embodiments, the interference may be avoided, substantially avoided, substantially minimized or minimized by detecting and/or knowing adjacent devices and allocating resources so that interference is sufficiently addressed. For example, allocating different frequency channels to adjacent devices belonging to different networks. 100276] In certain embodiments, the adjacent networks may be loosely synchronized. For example, the gateways may be in synch within suitable predefined time intervals (Tsync), for example 1, 10 or 20 seconds. Other suitable predefined time intervals may also be used. The predefined time interval may also be defined by a ratio of time slot to the time interval, wherein the ratio may be approximately 0.01%, 0.1%, 1%, 10% or 50%. The predefined time interval may also be defined by a ratio of time slot to the time interval, wherein the ratio may be between 0.0 1% to 50%, 0.1% to 10%, 0.01% to 5%, or 10% to 25%. Other suitable ratios may also be used. The predefined time interval (Tsync) may also be defined by a combination of time slot, clock drift and guard time, wherein the guard time may be approximately 0.01%, 0.1%, 1%, 10% or % of the time slot. The predefined time interval may also be defined by a combination of time slot, clock drift and guard time, wherein the guard time may be between 0.01% to 50%, 0.1% to 10%, 0.01% to 5%, or 10% to 25%. Other suitable guard times may also be used.

[00277] Conventional synchronization methods (for example NTP) may also be used to keep the gateways in sync. The adjacent devices belonging to different networks may be assigned the same or similar frequency channel if their timeslots are apart by more than Tsync. 1002781 Single Hop Networks 100279] Certain embodiments disclosed herein are directed to what may be referred to as single hop networks. In certain applications the single hop network may consists of an access point or base station and a plurality of devices capable of exchanging data with the access point and/or base station.

[00280J In certain applications, the system may use CDMA as physical layer.

. 49-

[00281] The system can increase coding gain by lowering data rate, thus increasing coverage.

[00282] All or substantial portion of devices are configured to transmit and/or receive at predefined time or at predefined timeslot using predefined resource, in this exemplary embodiment the CDMA code.

[00283] The amount of devices transmitting simultaneously is determined by the amount of available codes.

[00284] Timeslots are allocated so that devices which signals are received at base station with the same level or substantially the same level or with levels such that level difference does not cause "near-far" problem, transmit at the same time; this eliminates "near-far" problem. 1002851 The data rate can be configured to be different depending on the link quality between device and the base station.

[00286] The down link:

[00287} A substantial portion of individual devices each configured to listen on the predefined time slot, extracting relevant to it data from predefined offset and amount of data.

[00288] The data be extracted in other ways, for example by specifying a bit map, for example the device is preconfigured to use bits 1,3,5,7,8,9,15,16 and 17 from the data stream; it is also possible to configure the device to organize the bits in different order, for example 3,5,7,1,17,15,16 and 8.

[00289] A substantial portion of individual devices each resynchronizes its clock using start of frame or any other point in the received symbol stream.

[00290] Uplink:

[002911 A substantial portion of individual devices each configured to transmit its data at predefined time using predefined resource at predefined baud rate; the amount of data to transmit may also be predefined

[00292] Less restrictive implementations are also possible, for example one or more of the following: a substantially predefined time or a time window can be used; the amount of data may be defined by minimum and/or maximum amount of data to be transmitted; a pool of resources can be specified; the data rate may be adjusted for each transmission, for example based on signal strength of last received or several last received transmissions.

[002931 This implementation is beneficial because:

- it allows full or substantially full utilization of resources

- It simplifies base station implementation as number ofrequired correlators may be significantly reduced, as number of correlators only depends on allowable drift in devices' clock - Devices can resynchronize after each reception of data on downlink

- It simplifies devices' implementation as number of required correlators may be significantly reduced, as number of correlators only depends on allowable drift in devices' clock - Lowering data rate also means that timeslots become longer thus reducing the ratio of guard time to time slot length

[002941 Figure 45 depicts a typical one hop network, only 5 devices are shown for simplicity, however it needs to be understood that such a network may contain 100, 1000, 10000 or more devices.

[002951 Figure 46 shows an exemplary resource allocation for such a network, it also shows how the data is extracted; the time slots Mt and Mr are used for network maintenance in particular for adding new devices on the network.

[00296} Security:

[002971 An individual device and the central computer, both generate one time random key every timeslot; this key is used to encrypt decrypt the data.

[002981 In certain embodiments the system may be partitioned so that only a portion of the devices can transmit simultaneously, devices within the portion of the devices use predefined back-off periodsso that back-off periods of a at least one device within the portion of devices are at least slightly different from at least one other device within the portion of devices, the substantial portion of the portion of devices back-off for a predefined back-off period in case of failure to receive an acknowledgement of successful transmission.

[00299J The use of pre-defined back-off periods can be beneficial as it allows to reduce collision recovery time, especially in systems with many devices.

[003001 Application Examples

[003011 Application space can be partitioned by following dimensions: 100302] Long / Fat - The devices can be placed in a line forming a long multi-hop network (i.e, pressure sensors on a pipe). Or the devices can be evenly distributed (location wise), i.e., sensors on the production floor.

[00303] Dense / sparse - the network can be dense (i.e,, 10, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 90, 100, 120, 150, devices per 10 square meters) or sparse - devices are place 50m, 100m 125m, 150m, 200m apart. 1003041 Amount of data per transmission - Devices can transmit small bursts of data (8 bit) or large bursts of data (1024 bits).

[00305] Period between transmissions - period between transmissions can be short (10 msec) or long (1 minute). Other time periods may also be used. 100306] Energy sensitivity - Devices can be battery powered (energy sensitive) or not. 100307] Alternative Implementations

[00308] In certain applications, different spectrum may be used. It may be divided into different number of channels. Instead of dividing spectrum into channels, other methods may be used. For example, CDMA-using different pseudorandom sequences; Frequency hopping - using different hopping sequences; OFDM - using different sub-bands; or combination of the methods disclosed herein (including division into channels). (00309] Comparison to Existing Technologies 100310 At present, no existing products/protocols, achieve the result disclosed herein from economical and/or technological perspective. However, existing technologies may be modified to achieve comparable results as discussed herein. Figure 15 illustrates typical existing wireless network categories.

[00311] In the art there are some basics forms of access for accessing network resources (to transmit) controlled by access point:

[00312] CSM - end node listens to the traffic and is allowed to transmit only when no other node is transmitting. 100313] Random access - end node transmits its request to send data on predefined channel (resource). If unsuccessful, it retries after random period of time. The random period of time is increased after each consecutive unsuccessful attempt.

[00314] However, as discussed herein, there are limitations of these different topologies/technologies: 1003151 CSM access - typically all the end-nodes should see each other. Typical distance for wireless device is 100m. To cover one square kilometer, more than 120 access points will be required.

100316] CSM and random access collision resolution - if N nodes are trying to transmit simultaneously, certain amount of time T is required before all the nodes will succeed. The problem is made worse by presence of higher layers that will typically timeout (if T is greater than timeout threshold) and try to re-establish the connection, thus consuming extra network resources.

[00317] Random access Near-Far problem - nodes that are closer to the access points will have better chances to get their request accepted than remote nodes. The problem can be reduced by adjusting end-nodes power, but it constraints implementation to be TDMA (end-node has to receive and transmit on the same frequency to correctly predict the path loss in the up-link based on down-link).

[003181 Assume that request slot happen every 10 msec. Let's assume that a node initially generates a random number between I and 10. This number is doubled until a limit of 200 (2 seconds) is reached, The random number indicates how many request slots the node should miss before retransmission. Table 7 below gives simulation results for collision resolution assuming that nodes requests are uniformly distributed. Uniform distribution is the best case scenario. The simulation does not take into account additional node (that did not participate in collision) and are trying to transmit.

Number of nodes Number of re-tries for last Time until last node succeeds transmitting simultaneously node [seconds] 410 4.1 125 770 7.7 250 1150 11.5 500 2190 21.9 1000 _§1 _9091.9 _______-_ 488210 4,882.1 Table 7

[00319] Table 8 below shows the results if maximum retry interval is set to 100 (1 sec). Table 8 suggests that access points can handle around 100 nodes in real life. It also shows that after certain number of nodes the system collapses due to the multi-hop problem. If routing nodes are sharing the same resources as access points, the available bandwidth is reduced (at best) by 2Anumber of hops. This basically limits the number of hops to 3-5 hops. To cope with these hop limitation nodes has to use full duplex dual-channel transceivers, which add to their cost.

Number of nodes Number of re-tries for last Time until last node succeeds transmitting simultaneously node [seconds] 50 320 3.2 100 460 4.6

200 820 8.2

400 2300 23 800 45080 450.8 1000 248880 2,488.8 Table 8

[00320] Figure 16 shows a network with one access point (open circle) and a plurality of node (filled in circle). The dotted line circle in Figure 16 encircles the end nodes that are visible to a particular node. Existing technology offers following approaches, for example, Figure 17 shows a typical star network topology approach. Figure 18 shows a typical tree network topology approach where reduced transmitting power at the access point (open circle) and nodes (filled in circle) is used. The gateways are the circles with and x in them. Figure 19 shows another typical tree network topology approach. Figure 20 shows a typical mesh network topology approach where the transmitting power of the access points and end-nodes is reduced. Figure 21 shows another typical mesh network topology approach.

[003211 Due to the big number of access points required in these approaches, the implementation is expensive and cumbersome. For example, the access points would normally have around a 30% overlap to cover all the area. In Figure 19, the second tree approach scenario the network is limited to 5 hops. Assuming that each access point can handle up to 100 nodes, the maximum number of end-nodes per gateway is 500. In Figure 18, the first tree approach scenario the access point on the trunk of the tree has to be sophisticated (and expensive) to maintain such a large number of hops.

[003221 Solutions Using Technolopy Disclosed

[00323] For clarity, in the exemplary embodiments illustrated in Figures 22 , figures show only selected path(s). Figure 22 illustrates a network system solution, according to certain disclosed embodiments. Figure 22 depicts two routes to the sink/gateway point. The filled in circles show nodes and the circle with an x shows a gateway. The nodes form a continuous network by relaying information in a prescribed manner. Figure 22 provides an example of route selections. The number of hops is minimized and all (or substantial number of) routes approach shortest path to the gateway.

[003241 Figure 23 illustrates a network system solution, according to certain disclosed embodiments. Figure 23 depicts routing in a dense network. Several devices are within communication range of each other. The filled in circles show nodes and the circle with an x shows a gateway. The nodes form a continuous network by relaying information in a prescribed manner. The network expands in this example as distance (in terms of number of hops) from the gateway increases. In this type of network the number of devices (combined with transmitted/received payload, required latency and time between transmissions) is limited by the bandwidth of the gateway. In such a network it may be desirable to increase gateway bandwidth by incorporating multiple transceivers or transceivers capable of processing more channels (spreading sequences). In such case the resource allocator may take into account mutual interference at the gateway due to adjacent channel interference and may allocate resources to avoid such interference.

[00325] Figure 24 illustrates a network system solution, according to certain disclosed embodiments. The filled in circles show nodes and the circle with an x shows a gateway. The nodes form a continuous network by relaying information in a prescribed manner. Figure 24 depicts a prolonged topology. The network can have from hundreds to tens of thousands devices forming a long (few kilometers to several hundred kilometers path). Devices may be located further apart (up to the maximum achievable distance given the baud rate and RF link budget). The baud rate can be lowered to achieve higher distance between devices. In this form of network number of devices would normally be limited by required latency. 100326] Figure 25 illustrates a network system solution, according to certain disclosed embodiments. The filled in circles show nodes and the circle with an x shows a gateway. The nodes form a continuous network by relaying information in a prescribed manner. Figure 25 depicts a two dimensional network with gateway in the centre. This can be extended to a three dimensional network. This type of network may be found in multi-story buildings. 1003271 Modifications to the Existin Technologies

[00328J Existing technologies may improve their performance by implementing certain embodiments disclosed hereof: Random access problem with many nodes: the probability distribution of nodes requests for channel allocation has to be substantially uniform (or uniform). If probability of transmission is not sufficiently uniform the system may utilize less bandwidth, or may have to limit number of devices per access points. The end-nodes may need to randomize as to the time of their request. For example, if a node wants to transmit at time 0, it may generate random number R (let's say between 0 and 100) and actually transmit at R msec. 1003291 Existing technologies may benefit from employing certain embodiments that are directed to a collision resolution approach where the access point can indicate that one or more collisions have happened. For example: special packet on paging channel indicating to end-nodes to set random value to maximum to assist with congestion resolution. For example, if 100 devices have transmitted at the same time (or substantially same time). The collision is detected at access points. Access points may broadcast a special packet designating that collision has happened. The devices then may generate a random number and either ceases to transmit until the collision is resolved or use back-off random timer to retransmit, The majority of device may elect to seize to transmit. This may prevent system from collapsing or reduce the chances of collapsing.

[003301 Exemplary Implementations

[003311 Comparative Example 1 1003321 In this example the network is made up of large number of end nodes in relatively close proximity to each other, transmitting at low baud rate. In this application, a large number of utility meters and controllers covering a factory need to be networked. The factory size is around 250 x 250 m and is a two storey buildings. The Sensor/controller density is around one per two square meters which equal around 31,250 end-nodes. The Sensor data packet size is around 16 bits. The sensor probing period is around 30 seconds. The controller data packet size is around 16 bits. The controller maximum latency is around 10 seconds. The controller's ratio is around 20%.

[003331 If this network is implemented using existing technologies:

[003341 Then using known star network approach - large cells connected to broadband network, using free spectrum. Such a network will typically require around 400 access points (cells), require around 400 gateways, The robustness of the network may be medium to high; however, failure of one access point may result in 70 nodes being unreachable until the access point is replaced.

[003351 Using known Tree approach topologies, then the access points need to share the same spectrum to interconnect. The required number of access points is around 400. The required number of gateways is around 67. The robustness is low; however, failure of one access point in the trunk can result in loss of a majority of end nodes.

[00336] Using known backhaul mesh approaches, the router access points need to operate in different spectrums. The required number of access points is around 400. The required number of Routers is around 80. The required number of gateways is around 1. The robustness is medium-high, however, failure of one access point may result in 70 nodes being unreachable until the access point is replaced. Failure of router is tolerated by re-routing.

[00337] In comparison to the above, using certain disclosed embodiments. The network has substantially uniform distribution; good collision resolution; encryption does not substantially add to overhead using stream cipher. Stream cipher uses package tagging, typically 32 bits to achieve reasonable security, The network according to certain embodiments, may require zero access points, zero routers, only one gateway and the robustness is high, for example, failure of one node may result in most cases in failure of just that node. 1003381 Comparative Example 2

[00339] In this example the network is a low density network covering large area, transmitting at low baud rate. In these applications there are a large number of fire sensors covering national park. The park around 100km x100km. The sensor/controller density is around one every 100 meters which results in about 1,000,000 end-nodes. The sensor data packet size is around 16 bits. The sensor probing period is around 60 seconds.

[00340] If this network is implemented using existing technologies:

[00341] Using a known star network approach which involves large cells connected to broadband network, using free spectrum. The network requires around 100,000 access points (cells) and around 100,000 gateways. The robustness is high, however, the failure of one access point will result in 10 nodes being unreachable until access point is replaced (00342] Using know tree approaches that has no control on end-node operation. The access point's share the same spectrum to interconnect. The required number of access points is around 10,000. The required number of gateways is around 1,600. The robustness is low; however, failure of one access point in the trunk can result in loss of majority of end-nodes.

1003431 Using known backhaul mesh approaches. The router access points operate in different spectrum. The required number of access points is around 10,000. The required number of routers is around 2,000. The required number of gateways is around 1. The robustness is high; however, failure of one access point will result in 10 nodes being unreachable until access point is replaced. Failure of router is tolerated by re-routing.

[00344] In comparison to the above, using certain disclosed embodiments. The network requires no access point or router. The required number of gateways is 1 (5 integrated transceivers). The robustness is high and the failure of one node will result in most cases in failure ofjust that node 1003451 Comparative Example 3 Example 3A. Sensors covering wide area Assumptions: Area: 1Okm x 1000km Sensor transmits 16 bits every second (net data) Effective range 300m (outdoor assumption) Number of sensors: 1,111, 111. 1003461 One way of addressing the above network build out using existing technology is to build high towers with access points covering a wide area. These access points will be connected via backhaul wireless network operating at different frequency. For example: Tower height: 100m Range (access point to device): 3 km Number of devices per AP: 400 Number of towers required: 2778, Price of access point + backhaul + installation: $20,000 Price of the device: $5 Total cost: $61,115,556

[00347] Note: this slightly violates the bandwidth constraint (ignoring the near-far problem): 400 devices * 16 bits / 2% = 320 kbps. Available bandwidth is 250 kbps. So in reality number of required towers is actually higher.

[003481 If a mesh network is implementation, according to certain disclosed embodiments, then:

Number of access point (at the edge): 5 Price of AP: $1000 Price of the device: $5 Total cost: $5,560,556

[003491 Example 3B. Smart metering and control Assumptions Sensors and controllers installed in every household and industrial building. Sensors transmit 16 bits of data every 10 seconds City area: 100km by 100km Number of households: 1,600,000 Number of industrial buildings: 400,000 Devices (sensors and controllers) per household: 20 Devices (sensors and controllers) per industrial building: 200 Percent of sensors: 80%

[00350) If a ZigBee approach is used where ZigBee access points are wired together and connected to the cellular modem, than: Number of access point per household: 3 Number of access point per industrial building: 20 Number of cellular modems per building: I Data per gateway - household (month): 324 MB Data per gateway - industrial (month): 3,240 MB Cost of device: $2 Cost of access point (including installation): $1000 Cost of cellular router: $1000 Data cost per month - household: $60 Data cost per month - industrial: $150

Initial cost: $13,224,000,000

Running cost per month: $156,000,000

Total cost for 5 years: $22,584,000,000

[00351] If a Weightless type implementation is used where the access points are installed at 20m height throughout the city. Access point is connected to existing wire (fiber) network, than:

Devices per access point: 2,343 Number of access point: 47,787 Coverage radius: 288m Cost of device: $3 Cost of access point (including installation): $20,000 Data cost per month: $30 Total cost for 5 years: $1,377,756,000

[00352] Note: the coverage radius can be increased by reducing the baud rate, However in this case, number of devices per access point has to go down, which in turn limits the effective coverage. The actual Weightless implementation does not use CS, so in reality bandwidth efficiency will be lower and below costs will be higher.

[00353] If a mesh network is implementation, according to certain disclosed embodiments, then: Number of gateways: 956 Cost of gateway: $200 Cost of device: $2 Total cost for 5 years: $225,912,000

(00354] Table 9 below summarizes total cost for different applications. A lication Implementation Standard ZigBee Wheightless Smart Mesh Mesh Sensors $61,115,556 $5,560,556 covering wide area Smart $22,584,000,000 $1,377,756,000 $225,912,000 metenn Table 9

[003551 Example 4 1003561 Certain exemplary embodiments are directed to using low data rate mesh networks to trigger devices that use high bandwidth links. For example, this network may be used in peripheral security system comprised of some number of sensors connected together using a low cost network of certain disclosed embodiments. The system also has cameras connected to high bandwidth links B (for example UMTS). The cameras and link B are activated using the low cost network of certain disclosed embodiments typically only when there is an alarm or by remote request.

[003571 Example 5

1003581 Certain exemplary embodiments are directed to networks operating near system capacity. For example, a network where a number of devices frequently transmitting small amount of data. Another example is a network where the devices are transmitting at medium data rate. For example, system of 125,000 devices connected to one gateway, operating at 250 kbps, sending 8 bits of data every 5 seconds. Another example is a system of 1,000 devices connected to one gateway, operating at 250 kbps, sending 256 bits of data every 1.25 seconds, 1003591 Certain embodiments disclosed herein may be directed to a number of applications, some non-limiting examples are:

[00360) 1. Large number of sensors, meters and/or controllers.

[003611 A Wireless network in the factory comprising one or more of the following: Utility meters Temperature sensors Humidity sensors Sensors related to factory specific equipment (i.e. counter, counting number of boxes passing through), and Controllers, including but not limited to: Air-con controllers, Boiler controllers, Solar panel controllers, and Factory specific controllers (i.e. drilling speed controllers). (00362] A Sensor network in a car park comprising at least one of the following or combinations of the following: Sensors located at each parking spot. The network provides the driver with the closest available parking spot.

[00363] A plurality of parking sensors on at least one street comprising at least one of the following or combinations of the following: Providing drivers with information regarding available spots, Monitoring time limited parking, Controllers.

[00364] Sensors and controllers spread in the agricultural field comprising at least one of the following or combinations of the following: Sensors measuring moisture and/or certain chemicals, etc.; Controllers on pipes.

[00365] Sensors and controllers used in a building utilization monitoring comprising at least one or more of the following: monitoring the amount C02 and/or the change in C02 level in a plurality of rooms and/or sections of the building; and monitoring of the temperature in a plurality of rooms and/or sections of the building.

[003661 The collected information may be used to determine the average utilization rates of office block sections and/or rooms by correlating one or more of the above measurements with the number of people in that vicinity. This information may be fed back into an occupancy management system that alerted the building manager to areas of the building that were being under or over utilized. 100367] Sensors and controllers used along a pipeline to monitor for gas leakage. For example in this application a series of C02 sensors and/or acoustic sensors may be place at 10, 20, 50 or 100 meters intervals along the pipeline. In certain applications, the plurality of sensors may be placed at one or more of the following intervals: sufficient intervals, suitable intervals, and combinations of distances such as 5, , 20, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500 meters intervals along the pipeline. The sensors are able to report leakage and the sensor ID. This would enable a fairly precise location of the location of the leakage. 1003681 Certain applications may involve monitoring a pipeline for oil leakage. For example, a series of acoustic sensors may be positioned along the pipeline at intervals of 10, 20, 50 or 100 meters. Similarly, a series of chemical sensors may be place on the ground at intervals of 10, 20, 50 or 100 meters. In certain applications, the plurality of sensors may be positioned at one or more of the following intervals: sufficient intervals, suitable intervals, and combinations of distances such as 5, 10, 20, , 50, 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500 meters intervals along the pipeline. The combined sensors are able to report an oil leakage and the sensor ID, This would enable a fairly precise location of the location of the leakage.

[00369] Certain applications may involve monitoring a pipeline for water or other fluid leakage. For example, a series of acoustic sensors may be positioned along the pipeline at intervals of 10, 20, 50 or 100 meters. Similarly, a series of moisture or fluid sensors may be place on the ground at intervals of 10, 20, 50 or 100 meters. In certain applications, the plurality of sensors may be positioned at one or more of the following intervals: sufficient intervals, suitable intervals, and combinations of distances such as 5, 10, 20, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500 meters intervals along the pipeline.

The combined sensors are able to report an oil leakage and the sensor ID. This would enable a fairly precise location of the location of the leakage.

[00370] Certain applications may involve monitoring a pipeline for misplacement or misalignment of sections of the pipeline. For example, a series of IR and/or laser beam generators and related sensors may be positioned along the pipeline at appropriate intervals. If a segment of the pipeline becomes out of alignment then the adjacent sensors may report a loss of bean and the sensor is identified. This would enable a fairly precise location of the location of out of alignment portion of the pipeline, In certain applications, the plurality of sensors may be positioned at one or more of the following intervals: sufficient intervals, suitable intervals, and combinations of distances such as 5, 10, 20,25, 50, 100, 200, 300,400 or 500 meters intervals along the pipeline. 1003711 Certain applications may involve wide area fire detections systems. For example, a series of C02 sensors and/or temperature sensors may be positioned over a wide area (such as a national park or a forest) at intervals of 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, 1000 or 2000 meters. In certain applications, the plurality of sensors may be spaced apart at one or more of the following intervals: sufficient intervals, suitable intervals, and combinations of distances such as 20, 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000 or 2000 meters intervals in the area to be monitored. If the temperature and/or C02 level rises above a certain defined level, then a fire is assumed to be occurring and the location may be determined. This would enable a fairly precise location of fires and permit early detection of such fires. 1003721 Certain applications may involve controlling a plurality of lighting devices such as controlling streetlights. For example, a controller may be embedded in, or associated with, a portion of the street lights within the network. These controllers may be embedded in, or associated with, a substantial portion of the lights, a portion of the lights, each light, every second light, every third light, every fourth light, a mixed combination of intervals of the lights, or combinations thereof within the network. Also a sensor may be embedded in, or associated with, a portion of the street lights within the network. These sensors may be embedded in, or associated with, a substantial portion of the lights, a portion of the lights, each light, every second light, every third light, every fourth light, a mixed combination of intervals of the lights, or combinations thereof within the network. Such a network may enable the network to reduce energy consumption and/or detect and locate a faulty light.

[00373] Certain applications may involve controlling a plurality of lighting devices such as controlling lights along a road such as a highway. For example, a controller may be embedded in, or associated with, a portion of the lights within the network. The controller may also be associated with, or positioned on, the light pole or structure to which the light is affixed. The controllers may be embedded in, or associated with, a substantial portion of the lights, a portion of the lights, each light, every second light every third light, every fourth light, a mixed combination of intervals of the lights, or combinations thereof within the network. The sensors may be embedded in, or associated with, a substantial portion of the lights, a portion of the lights, each light, every second light, every third light, every fourth light, a mixed combination of intervals of the lights, or combinations thereof within the network. The sensors may also be associated with, or positioned on, the light pole or structure to which the light is affixed. Also the controllers and/or sensors may also be positioned at one or more of the following intervals: sufficient intervals, suitable intervals, and combinations of distances such as 200m, 500m, 1km, 2km or 3km along the road to be monitored. In certain applications, these networks may be able to do one or more of the following: reduce or turn off the lights if there are no cars on the road; turn on or increase the lights as cars approach; turn off or reduce the lights after the car has passed; detect and locate faulty lights, and reduce energy costs. (003741 Another exemplary application is sensors located in close proximity to each other (few centimetres). For example, counters in retail stores (storage facilities, distribution centres, etc.), counting amount of boxes (cans, screws, etc.) on each shelf and/or counters incorporating RFID IC - reporting if certain item was added and/or removed to and/or from the shelf.

[00375) High speed demand - response system: Flow and/or pressure sensors along a pipe (or multiple pipes). Sensors are located around 1m from other sensors, transmitting every second. For example, a 10 km pipe, 100 hops may be required. The latency for 100 hops may be 0.5 sec. It is to be understood that the distance location between sensors and/or the transmitting time period may vary. 1003761 Fire / temperature sensors covering national park: Sensors spread, for example, around 100 m from other sensors, transmitting if temperature rises above predefined threshold. It is to be understood that the distance location between sensors may vary.

[00377} Non-homogenous networks - networks where devices can have different resource requirements (payload, latency, period between transmissions, etc.). For example, a peripheral security system: The system is comprised of number of cameras transmitting large packets of data (e.g., 30 kbits/s) and a large number of sensors transmitting small packets of data (e.g., 8 bits every second). 1003781 Other applications are bandwidth restricted systems, for example, underwater sensors.

[00379] Applications where one or more of the devices within the network can move. This would include devices that move in a predefined way, for example, a robot arm. This would also include devices with limited range of motion, for example, a robot that can move only inside a room.

[00380] Other types of sensors and or controller, for example, Sensors and/or controllers in mining where wired infrastructure is expensive.

[00381] The exemplary approaches described may be carried out using suitable combinations of software, firmware and hardware and are not limited to particular combinations of such. Computer program instructions for implementing the exemplary approaches described herein may be embodied on a tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium, such as a magnetic disk or other magnetic memory, an optical disk (e.g., DVD) or other optical memory, RAM, ROM, or any other suitable memory such as Flash memory, memory cards, etc.

[003821 Other exemplary non-limiting embodiments

[003831 1. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the at least one of the plurality of devices is positioned within a distance from the at least one gateway such that the distance allows communication between the at least one gateway and the at least one of the plurality of devices; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network and the minimum infrastructure required for the gateway to handle at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 devices is substantially the same.

[00384) 2. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the at least one of the plurality of devices is positioned within a distance from the at least one gateway such that the distance allows communication between the at least one gateway and the at least one of the plurality of devices; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device;

[00385] 3. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; (c) a substantial portion of the devices are arranged such that the distance between devices allows wireless communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein the cost of deploying and maintaining the network of at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, 500000, 1000000, or 5000000 devices is substantially proportion to the cost of the individual devices.

[00386] 4. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network and the at least one gateway within the network is capable of handling at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 devices without the need for additional infrastructure. 10 03871 5. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network; wherein the network is capable of handling at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 wireless devices; and wherein the plurality of devices, the at least one gateway and the at least one computing device form the network without the need for additional infrastructure.

[00388] 6. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network and the minimum infrastructure require for the gateway to handle at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 devices is substantially same. the f00389] 7. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (b) at least one gateway capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (c) at least one electronic computing device capable of transmitting and/or receiving wherein the ratio of available bandwidth data; to the net pay load of a substantial portion network system is between 50 to 200, of the 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200000, million, 2 million to I billion, one billion 200 to 2 to 100 billion. 100390] 8. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data (b) at least one gateway capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (c) at least one electronic computing device capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein the ratio of available channel capacity to the net pay load of a substantial the network system is between 50 to portion of 200, 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200000, 200 to 2 million, 2 million to I billion, one billion to 100 billion.

[00391] 9. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (b) at least one gateway capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (c) at least one electronic computing device capable of transmitting and/or receiving wherein the ratio of a total data transmission data; to a net overhead of a substantial portion network system is between 50 to 200, of the 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200000, million, 2 million to I billion, one billion 200 to 2 to 100 billion.

[00392] 10. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (c) at least one route within the network; wherein data is transmitted from the at least one gateway to a first device in the at least route and then from the first device to one a second device in the at least one route until a substantial portion of the devices and so forth forming the route have transmitted data; wherein data is transmitted back to the at least one gateway along the at least one hopping from one device to another device route by along the route until the data is received least one gateway and a substantial portion at the at of the devices forming the route have transmitted data; and wherein the system is capable of handling at least 50, 100, 200, 300, 500,1000, 5000, 10,000 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up the at least one route. 1003931 11. A network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for operating the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the system is configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes are capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route.

[00394] 12. A network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for configuring the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the systems are configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes are capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route, 1003951 13. A network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for operating the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the systems are configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes are capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route.

[00396] 14. A network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for configuring the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the systems are configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes are capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route. 1003971 15. A network system comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for operating the network; (b) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein a substantial portion of the devices in the network are capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device and form a network with one or more of the following: no gateway and/or control point; a single gateway and/or control point; a single gateway and a plurality of control points; a plurality of gateways and a single control point; or a plurality of gateways and/or control points.

[00398] 16. The network system of one or more examples, wherein the ratio of available bandwidth to the net pay load is between 200 to 250,000, 300 to 5000, 1000 to 100000, 50000 to I million or 500000 to 10 million.

1003991 17. The network system of one or more examples, wherein the ratio of channel capacity to the net pay load is between 200 to 250,000, 300 to 5000, 1000 to 100000, 50000 to I million or 500000 to 10 million.

[00400) 18. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the system is a low-bandwidth application. at least

[004011 19. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein are capable of %, 90%, 95%, 98%, 99%, 99.5%, 99.8% of the devices in the network interacting with at least one neighbouring device.

[00402] 20. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the ratio of transmit plus receive time to idle time is between 100 to 300000, 100 to 500, 200 to 1000, 500 to 2000, 1000 to 10000, 1000 to 5000, 10000 to 50000, 40000 to 120000, 50000 to 140000, 80000 to 200000, 120000 to 300000 or 160000 to 350000.

[004031 21. The network systems of one or More examples, wherein substantial portion of the plurality of devices in the network are relatively inexpensive and/or power efficient. wherein 1004041 22. The network systems of one or more examples, network extensions to the network may be achieved by adding more devices to the without the need to reconfigure complex and/or powerful central transmitters and/or receivers.

[00405] 23. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein transmission overhead is significantly reduced.

1004061 24. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein MAC layeroverhead is 0%, less than 1%, lessthan 5%, or less than 10%.

[00407] 25. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the system is preconfigured by creating one or more of the following: optimized routes and optimized resources.

[00408] 26. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the optimized resource is one or more of the following: channel, time slot, CDMA sequence, frequency hopping sequence, and FDD bins.

[00409] 27. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein transmission overhead is reduced by suppressing one or more of the following: source headers, destination headers and request-channel allocation-transmission overhead. 1004101 28. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the number of devices within the network is between 25,000 to 500,000; 100,000 to 1,000,000, 250,000 to 600,000, 500,000 to I million; 500,000 to 2 million; 700,000 to 2 million 800,000 to 5 million, I million to 10 million, or 2 million to 15 million.

[004111 29. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the plurality of devices are one or more of the following: current sensors, light sensors, humidity sensors, pressure sensors, gas sensors, chemicals sensors, proximity sensors, movement sensors, magnetic sensors, radiation sensors, cameras, scanners, sprinkles, heater controllers, pump controllers, air-con controllers, and water supply controllers.

[00412] 30. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the plurality of devices perform one or more of the following functions: measure something, control another device, monitor something, report measured data back, report anomalies, and accept and execute control commands.

100413] 31. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the packet exchange and routing is done with zero overhead and no addresses are required. 100414] 32. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the packet exchange and routing is done with substantially no overhead and no addresses are required.

[00415] 33. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein a portion of the devices, a substantial portion of the devices, or each node may be configured with its own configuration.

[004161 34. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the net over head per device is less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0,1%, or 0.01%.

1004171 35. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the system is capable of handling at least 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000, 50,000 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up the at least one route without substantially increasing transmission overhead.

[00418] 36. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein the network is a substantially wireless network. 100419] 37. The network systems of one or more examples, wherein additional infrastructure includes one or more of the following: access points and routers, {00420] 38. A method for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a network comprising: receiving and/or transmitting digital data via at least one gateway in the network; generating one or more digital data packets from the digital data suitable for transmission over the network; and performing one or more of the following: transmitting the one or more digital data packets via the at least one gateway to a plurality of devices connected via a suitable topology; and receiving the one or more digital data packets from the plurality of devices connected via a suitable topology to the at least one gateway.

[004211 39. The method of one or more examples, further comprising receiving data from the plurality of devices via a transmitting of the data in a hopping fashion from one device to another device until the data is received at the least one gateway.

[00422] 40. The methods of one or more examples, further comprising transmitting data from the at least one gateway to the plurality of devices via transmitting of the data in a hopping fashion from the at least one gateway to at least one first device and then to at least one second device and then to a series of other devices until the data is received by a substantial portion of the plurality of devices on the network that are preconfigured to receive the data.

[004231 41. The methods of one or more examples, further comprising monitoring the plurality of devices to generate an alarm when one of the devices fails or re-routes traffic around a failed device.

[00424] 42. The methods of one or more examples, further comprising managing data traffic among the plurality of devices and the at least one gateway device, and separating the plurality of devices into one or more logical zones.

1004251 41. The methods of one or more examples, wherein the at least one device is in a first logical zone and at least another device is in a second logical zone.

[00426] 42. A method based on one or more of the disclosed embodiments or one or more combinations of the disclosed parameters.

[004271 43. A network system based on one or more of the disclosed embodiments or one or more combinations of the disclosed parameters. 100428 Al. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the at least one of the plurality of devices is positioned within a distance from the at least one gateway such that the distance allows communication between the at least one gateway and the at least one of the plurality of devices; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network and the at least one gateway within the network is capable of handling at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 devices without the need for additional infrastructure.

[004291 A2. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network and the at least one gateway within the network is capable of handling at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 devices without the need for additional infrastructure.

[00430] A3. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data and receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of one or more of the following: transmitting data to at least one of the plurality of devices; receiving data from at least one of the plurality of devices; transmitting data to at least one electronic computing device; and receiving data from at least one electronic computing device; wherein the distance between devices allows communication between at least one device and at least one other device; wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are able to communicate with at least one other device within the network; wherein the network is capable of handling at least 100, 500, 2000, 10000, 100000, or 1000000 wireless devices; and wherein the plurality of devices, the at least one gateway and the at least one computing device form the network without the need for additional infrastructure. 100431] A4. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (b) at least one gateway capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (c) at least one electronic computing device capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein the ratio of available bandwidth to the net pay load of a substantial portion of the network system is between 50 to 200, 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200000, 200 to 2 million, 2 million to I billion, one billion to 100 billion. 1004321 A5. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (b) at least one gateway capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (c) at least one electronic computing device capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein the ratio of available channel capacity to the net pay load of a substantial portion of the network system is between 50 to 200, 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200000, 200 to 2 million, 2 million to I billion, one billion to 100 billion.

[004331 A6. A network system comprising: (a) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (b) at least one gateway that is capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; (c) at least one route within the network; wherein data is transmitted from the at least one gateway to a first device in the at least one route and then from the first device to a second device in the at least one route and so forth until a substantial portion of the devices forming the route have transmitted data; wherein data is transmitted back to the at least one gateway along the at least one route by hopping from one device to another device along the route until the data is received at the at least one gateway and a substantial portion of the devices forming the route have transmitted data; and wherein the system is capable of handling at least 50, 100, 200, 300, 500,1000, 5000, 10,000 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up the at least one route.

[00434] A7. A network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for operating the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the systems are configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes are capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route. 100435) A8. A network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for configuring the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the systems are configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes are capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route.

[00436] A9. A network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for operating the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the systems are configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes are capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route, 1004371 Al0. A network system for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a wireless mesh network comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for configuring the mesh network; (b) at least one gateway device; (c) a plurality of preconfigured routes within the network wherein the routes are comprised of one or more devices; wherein the systems are configured such that a substantial portion of the plurality of preconfigured routes arc capable of handling at least 50 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up a particular route. 1004381 All. A network system comprising: (a) at least one electronic computing device for operating the network; (c) a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein a substantial portion of the devices in the network are capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device and form a network with one or more of the following: no gateway and/or control point; a single gateway and/or control point; a single gateway and a plurality of control points; a plurality of gateways and a single control point; or a plurality of gateways and/or control points.

[00439) A12. The network system of examples 1 to 10 or 11, wherein the ratio of available bandwidth to the net pay load is between 200 to 250,000, 300 to 5000, 1000 to 100000, 50000 to I million or 500000 to 10 million.

[00440] A13. The network system of examples Al to A10 or All, wherein the ratio of channel capacity to the net pay load is between 200 to 250,000, 300 to 5000, 1000 to 100000, 50000 to I million or 500000 to 10 million.

[00441] A14. The network systems of examples Al to A12, or A13, wherein the system is a low-bandwidth application.

[00442] AIS. The network systems of examples Al to A13 or A14, wherein at least 85%, 90%, 95%, 98%, 99%, 99,5%, 99.8% of the devices in the network are capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device,

[00443] A16. The network systems of examples Al to A14 or A15, wherein the ratio of transmit plus receive time to idle time is between 100 to 300000, 100 to 500, 200 to 1000, 500 to 2000, 1000 to 10000, 1000 to 5000, 10000 to 50000, 40000 to 120000, 50000 to 140000, 80000 to 200000, 120000 to 300000 or 160000 to 350000.

[00444) A17. The network systems of examples Al to A15 or A16 wherein, substantial portion of the plurality of devices in the network are relatively inexpensive and/or power efficient. 100445] A18. The network systems of examples Al to A16 or A17 wherein extensions to the network may be achieved by adding more devices to the network without the need to reconfigure complex and/or powerful central transmitters andor receivers.

[00446] A19. The network systems of examples Al to A17 or A18, wherein transmission overhead is significantly reduced.

[004471 A20. The network systems of examples A l to A18 or A19, wherein MAC layer overhead is 0%, less than 1%, less than 5%, or less than 10%.

[00448) A21. The network systems of examples Al to A19 or A20, wherein the system is preconfigured by creating one or more of the following: optimized routes and optimized resources,

1004491 A22. The network systems of examples Al to A20 or A21, wherein the optimized resource is one or more of the following: channel, time slot, CDMA sequence, frequency hoping sequence, and FDD bins, {00450] A23. The network systems of examples Al to A21 or A22, wherein transmission overhead is reduced by suppressing one or more of the following: source headers, destination headers and request-channel allocation-transmission overhead.

[00451] A24. The network systems of examples Al to A22 or A23, wherein the number of devices within the network is between 25,000 to 500,000; 100,000 to 1,000,000, 250,000 to 600,000, 500,000 to 1 million; 500,000 to 2 million; 700,000 to 2 million 800,000 to 5 million, I million to 10 million, or 2 million to 15 million.

[00452] A25. The network systems of examples Al to A23 or A24, wherein the plurality of devices are one or more of the following: current sensors, light sensors, humidity sensors, pressure sensors, gas sensors, chemicals sensors, proximity sensors, movement sensors, magnetic sensors, radiation sensors, cameras, scanners, sprinkles, heater controllers, pump controllers, air-con controllers, and water supply controllers.

[00453] A26. The network systems of examples Al to A24 or A25, wherein the plurality of devices perform one or more of the following functions: measure something, control another device, monitor something, report measured data back, report anomalies, and accept and execute control commands.

[004541 A27. The network systems of examples Al to A25 or A26, wherein the packet exchange and routing is done with zero overhead and no addresses are required.

[00455] A28. The network systems of examples Al to A26 or A27, wherein a portion of the devices, a substantial portion of the devices, or each node may be configured with its own configuration.

[00456] A29. The network systems of examples Al to A27 or A28, wherein the net over head per device is less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, or 001%.

[004571 A30. The network systems of examples Al to A28 or A29, wherein the system is capable of handling at least 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000, ,000 hops between the at least one gateway and the series of devices making up the at least one route without substantially increasing transmission overhead.

[004581 A31. The network systems of examples Al to A29 or A30, wherein the network is a substantially wireless network.

[004591 A32. The network systems of examples Al to A30 or A31, wherein additional infrastructure includes one or more of the following: access points and routers. 1004601 A33. A method for distributing digital data to and/or from a plurality of devices over a network comprising: receiving and/or transmitting digital data via at least one gateway in the network; generating one or more digital data packets from the digital data suitable for transmission over the network; and performing one or more of the following: transmitting the one or more digital data packets via the at least one gateway to a plurality of devices connected via a suitable topology; and receiving the one or more digital data packets from the plurality of devices connected via a suitable topology to the at least one gateway. 1004611 A34. The method of example A33 further comprising receiving data from the plurality of devices via a transmitting of the data in a hopping fashion from one device to another device until the data is received at the least one gateway.

[00462] A35. The methods of examples A33 or A34 further comprising transmitting data from the at least one gateway to the plurality of devices via transmitting of the data in a hopping fashion from the at least one gateway to at least one first device and then to at least one second device and then to a series of other devices until the data is received by a substantial portion of the plurality of devices on the network that are preconfigured to receive the data.

[004631 A36. The methods of examples A33, A34, or A35 further comprising monitoring the plurality of devices to generate an alarm when one of the devices fails or re-routes traffic around a failed device.

[00464] A37. The methods of examples A33 to A35 or A36 further comprising managing data traffic among the plurality of devices and the at least one gateway device, and separating the plurality of devices into one or more logical zones. 1004651 A38. The methods of examples A33 to A36 or A37 wherein the at least one device is in a first logical zone and at least another device is in a second logical zone. 1004661 A39. A method based on one or more of the disclosed embodiments or one or more combinations of the disclosed parameters. 1004671 A40. A network system based on one or more of the disclosed embodiments or one or more combinations of the disclosed parameters.

[00468] AAA. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where a portion of the devices performs one or more of the following: transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the portion of the devices and/or received from the portion of the devices.

[004691 AA.2. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where five or more of the devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the five or more devices and/or received from the five or more devices.

[004701 AA.3.1. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where a portion of the devices individually perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the portion of the devices and/or received from the portion ofthe devices.

[00471] AA.3.2. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where a substantial portion of the devices individually perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the portion of the devices and/or received from the portion of the devices. 1004721 AA.3.3 A system comprising: a plurality of devices where each device performs one or more of the following: transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to each device and/or received from each device.

[00473] AA.4. A system comprising: at least 5, 10, 20 or 50 devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data, wherein a substantial portion of the individual devices each transmits and/or receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource, and an addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to each device and/or received from each device.

[004741 AA.5. System comprising: at least 5, 10, 20 or 50 devices of the system are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data, wherein each of those devices transmits and/or receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource, and an addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to each device and/or received from each device. 100475] AA.6. A system comprising: a plurality of devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data, wherein five or more of the devices transmit and/or receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource, and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the five or more devices and/or received from the five or more devices. 100476) AA.7. A system comprising: a plurality of devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data, wherein three or more of the devices perform one or more of the following: transmits and/or receives information at predefined times, transmits and/or receives a predefined amount of data, and transmits and/or receives using a predefined resource, wherein address and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted or received.

[00477] AA.8. A system comprising: a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data, wherein each device performs one or more of the following: transmits and/or receives information at one or more predefined times, transmits and/or receives one or more predefined amounts of data, and transmits and/or receives using one or more predefined resources, wherein address and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted or received. 1004781 AA.9. A system comprising: a plurality of devices capable of transmitting and/or receiving data, wherein each device performs one or more of the following: transmits and/or receives information at one or more predefined times, transmits and/or receives one or more predefined amounts of data, and transmits and/or receives using one or more predefined resources, wherein address and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted or received and the address of each device and/or the routing information is determined for each device by one or more of the following: the predefined times, the predefined amount of data and the predefined resources. 1004791 AA.10. A system comprising; a plurality of devices, wherein a substantial portion of the individual devices perform one or more of the following: transmits data at one or more predefined times, receives data at one or more predefined times, transmits one or more predefined amounts of data, receives one or more predefined amounts of data, transmits using one or more predefined resources and receives using one or more predefined resources; wherein address and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted and/or received, and wherein the address of individual devices and/or the routing information is established and/or derived based on a set of information about at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources, and wherein the set of information is available for use at one or more of the following: individual devices, a central computer, a cloud computing resource and a plurality of computing devices. 1004801 AA. 11. A system comprising: a plurality of devices, wherein a substantial portion ofthe individual devices perform one or more of the following: transmit data at one or more predefined times, receive data at one or more predefined times, transmit one or more predefined amounts of data, receive one or more predefined amounts of data, transmit using one or more predefined resources and receive using one or more predefined resources; wherein the predefmed resources are one or more of the following: frequency channel, spreading code sequence, starting position in spreading code, frequency hopping sequence, time slot and FDD bins, wherein address and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted and/or received, and wherein the address of individual devices and/or the routing information is established and/or derived based on a set of information pertaining to at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources, and wherein the set of information is available for use at one or more of the following: individual devices, a central computer, a cloud computing resource and a plurality of computing devices.

[00481] AA.12. A system comprising: at least 5, 25, 50, 100, 500 or 1000 of devices, wherein a substantial portion of individual devices perform one or more of the following: transmits data at one or more predefined times, receives data at one or more predefined times, transmits one or more predefined amounts of data, receives one or more predefined amounts of data, transmits using one or more predefined resources and receives using one or more predefined resources; wherein address and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted and/or received, and wherein the address of the individual devices and/or the routing information is established and/or derived based on a set of information about at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources, and wherein the set of information is available for use at one or more of the following: individual devices, a central computer, a cloud computing resource and a plurality of computing devices. 1004821 AA.13. A system comprising: at least 500, 5000, 20000 or 100000 of devices, wherein a substantial portion of individual devices perform one or more of the following: transmits data at one or more predefined times, receives data at one or more predefined times, transmits one or more predefined amounts of data, receives one or more predefined amounts of data, transmits using one or more predefined resources and receives using one or more predefined resources; wherein address and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted and/or received, and wherein the address ofthe individual devices and/or the routing information is established and/or derived based on a set of information about at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources, and wherein the set of information is available for use at one or more of the following: individual devices, a central computer, a cloud computing resource and a plurality of computing devices. 1004831 AA.14.1. A system comprising: at least 50000, 500000, 10000000 or 50000000 of devices, wherein a substantial portion of individual devices perform one or more of the following: transmits data at one or more predefined times, receives data at one or more predefined times, transmits one or more predefined amounts of data, receives one or more predefined amounts of data, transmits using one or more predefined resources and receives using one or more predefined resources; wherein address and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted and/or received, and wherein the address of the individual devices and/or the routing information is established and/or derived based on a set of information about at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources, and wherein the set of information is available for use at one or more of the following: individual devices, a central computer, a cloud computing resource and a plurality of computing devices. 1004841 AA.14.2 A system comprising: a plurality of devices where five or more of the devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the five or more devices and/or received from the five or more devices. 100485] AA,14.3 A system comprising: a plurality of devices where five or more of the devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the five or more devices and/or received from the five or more devices.

[00486] AA.14.4. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where five or more of the devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; receive at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; and transmit at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource and receive at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the five or more devices and/or received from the five or more devices.

[00487] AA.14.5.. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where a portion of the devices individually perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at variable times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the portion of the devices and/or received from the portion of the devices.

[00488] AA.14.6.. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where a portion of the devices individually perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the portion of the devices and/or received from the portion of the devices. 100489] AA.14.7. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where a portion of the devices individually perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; receive at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; and transmit at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource and receive at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the portion of the devices and/or received from the portion of the devices.

[00490] AA.14.8. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where each device performs one or more of the following: transmits at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource; receives at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmits at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource and receives at predefined times a variable amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to each device and/or received from each device.

[004911 AA,14.9. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where each device performs one or more of the following: transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource; receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource; and transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource and receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a variable resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to each device and/or received from each device. 1004921 AA.14.10. A system comprising: a plurality of devices where each device performs one or more of the following: transmits at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; receives at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; and transmits at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource and receives at predefined times a variable amount of data using a variable resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to each device and/or received from each device. 1004931 AA.15. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 5, 10,20, 50 or 500 devices. 1004941 AA,16. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices.

[004951 AA.17. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices and the portion of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices.

[00496] AA.18. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the routing information is determined for the individual devices by one or more of the following: the predefined times, the predefined amount of data and the predefined resources.

[00497] AA.19. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the address of individual devices and/or the routing information is established and/or derived based on a set of information about at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources, 1004981 AA.20. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the system further comprises a computer and the computer is one or more of the following: individual devices, a central computer, a cloud computing resource and a plurality of computing devices.

[004991 AA.21. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined resources are one or more of the following: frequency channel, spreading code sequence, starting position in spreading code, frequency hopping sequence, time slot and FDD bins. 1005001 AA,22. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the address of individual devices and/or the routing information is established and/or derived based on a set of information pertaining to at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources. 1005011 AA.23. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 5, 25, 50, 100, 500 or 1000 devices, and the substantial portion of individual devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the substantial portion of the devices and/or received from the substantial portion of the devices.

[00502] AA.24. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 500, 5000, 20000 or 100000 of devices and the substantial portion of individual devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the substantial portion of the devices and/or received from the substantial portion of the devices.

[005031 AA.25. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 50000, 500000, 10000000 or 50000000 devices and the substantial portion of individual devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the substantial portion of the devices and/or received from the substantial portion of the devices.

[00504] AA.26. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the predefined times, one or more of the predefined amounts of data and/or one or more of the predefined resources is calculated using a predefined set of rules and/or a predefined set of instructions.

[00505] AA.27. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the predefined times, one or more of the predefined amounts of data and/or one or more of the predefined resources is calculated using the predefined set of rules and/or the predefined set of instructions based at least in part on a predefined initial state and/or a seed value. 1005061 AA.27. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device is equal to or less than 1 bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits.

1005071 AA.28. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device is equal to or less than I bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits. 1005081 AA.29. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device is equal to or less than 1 byte, 4 bytes, 16 bytes or 48 bytes. (00509] AA.30. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device is equal to or more than I bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits. 1005101 AA,31. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device is equal to or more than I byte, 4 bytes, 16 bytes or 48 bytes. 1005111 AA.32. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data transmitted and/or received at the individual device is at least 100 bytes, 1000 bytes, 16000 bytes or 48000 bytes

[00512) AA.33. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data from a second device is appended to the data received from a first device and is transmitted to the third device.

[00513] AA.34. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at a device is appended to the data received from at least 5, 25, 100, 500, 1000, 10000 or 1000000 other devices at the device and the aggregated data from the devices is transmitted to at least one next device.

[005141 AA.35. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at a device is appended to the data received from at least 5, 25, 100, 500, 1000, 10000 or 1000000 other devices at the device and the aggregated data from the devices is transmitted to at least one gateway. 1005151 AA.36. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amounts of data intended for a selected portion of the devices on the network is transmitted from the gateway to at least one first device, and the at least one first device performs one or more of the following: forwards the predefined amounts of data to at least one second device; extracts a predefined amount of data and forwards the predefined amounts of data to at least one second device; extracts a predefined amount of data, extracts a portion of the predefined amount of data and forwards the remaining portion of the predefined amounts of data to at least a second device; extracts a portion of the predefined amount of data and forwards at least a first, second or third portion of the remaining predefined amounts of data to at least a second, third or fourth device; extracts a portion of the predefined amount of data and forwards to one or more of the at least a first, second or third portions of the remaining predefined amounts of data to one or more other devices, wherein the structure and sequencing of the predefined amounts of data is modified. 100516] AA.37. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device to a bandwidth available at the individual device is equal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0.00001%.

[00517] AA.38. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device to a bandwidth available at the individual device is between 10% to 0.00001%, 5% to 0.0001%, 1% to 0.001%, 0.1% to 0.0001%, 0.003% to 0.012%,0.0003% to 0.0012%, 1% to 0.0003% or 0.00003% to 0.0015%. 1005181 AA.39. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device to a bandwidth available at the at least one gateway is equal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0.000001%.

[00519] AA.40. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device to a bandwidth available at the at least one gateway is between 10% to 0.00001%, 5% to 0.0001%, 1% to 0.001%, 0.1% to 0.0001%, 0.003% to 0.012%,0.0003% to 0.0012%, 1% to 0.0003% or 0.00003% to 0.0015%. 1005201 AA.40.1. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the individual device originates predefined amounts of data (Dk}, at predefined times {Tk},

and the available data rate {Rt} at the individual device is B, andRr= ,tand

Rt isequal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0.00001%.

[00521] AA.40.2. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein {Dk} are amounts of data transmitted for use by the individual device, at predefined times {Tk}, and the available data rate { Rr } at the individual device is B, and R,.= bz k+ B ,and Rr is equal to or less than 10/, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or

0.00001%, 1005221 AA.40.3. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein Rt and/or Rr are between 10% to 0.00001%, 5% to 0.0001%, 1% to 0.001%, 0.1% to 0.0001%, 0.003% to 0.012%, 0.0003% to 0.0012%, 1% to 0.0003% or 0.00003% to 0.0015%. 1005231 AA.40.4. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein B is bandwidth available at the at least one gateway, and Rt and/or Rr are equal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0,00001%. (005241 AA.40.5. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein B is bandwidth available at the at least one gateway, and Rt and/or Rr are between 10% to 0.00001%, 5% to 0.0001%, 1% to 0.001%, 0.1% to 0.0001%, 0.003% to 0.012%, 0.0003% to0.0012%, 1%to0.0003%or0.00003%to0.0015%. 1005251 AA.41. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the ratio of an aggregated amount of data transmitted and/or received at the at least one gateway to the available bandwidth at the at least one gateway is at least 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%,90%,95%,98%,99%,99.5%,99.9%, 99.99% or99.999%. 1005261 AA.42. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the available bandwidth is approximately equal to or at least 1/128, 1/64, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4,1/2, or 1 of the total bandwidth.

[005271 AA.43. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the available bandwidth is between 0.4% to 100%, 0.8% to 100%, 1.5% to 100%, 3.1% to 100%, 6% to 100%, 12% to 100%, 25% to 100%, 50% to 100%, 75% to 100%, 90% to 100%, 25% to 75%,0.4% to 12%, 3.1% to 25% or 6% to 50% of the total bandwidth,

[005281 AA.44. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein each device or the substantial portion of individual devices extract information that is transmitted for use at the individual device by using one or more predefined offsets and/or one or more predefined amounts of datAA. 1005291 AA.45. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the individual devices transmit and/or receive for a predefined period of time.

100530] AA.46. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least nanosecond, 10 nanoseconds or 100 nanoseconds 100531] AA.47. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most Inanosecond, 10 nanoseconds or 100 nanoseconds

[005321 AA.48. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least Imicrosecond, 10 microseconds or 100 microseconds

[00533] AA.49. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most Imicrosecond, 10 microseconds or 100 microseconds

[00534] AA.50. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at leastImilisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds.

[00535] AA.51, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most1milisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds

[00536] AA.52. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least I second, 10 seconds or 100 seconds

[00537] AA.53. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most I second, 10 seconds or 100 seconds 100538] AA.54. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least Imilisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds and an amount of data is variable,

[00539] AA.54. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the time period is predefined and the amount of data is variable.

[00540] AA.55. The system of one or more of the examples, where the amount of data is substantially the same and/or variable.

[00541] AA.56.The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a resource is substantially the same and/or variable.

[005421 AA.57. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: the predefined time for a substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined amount of data for a substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined resources for a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are determined by the central computer, the cloud computing resource and/or the plurality of computing devices.

100543] A58. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of computing devices are at least a portion of the plurality of devices.

[00544] AA.59. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of computing devices are capable of communicating with at least one other computing device.

[00545] AA.60. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: the predefined time for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined amount of data for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined resources for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices is determined based on one or more of the following: required and/or desired periodicity of data to be transmitted for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, required and/or desired amount of data to be transmitted and/or received for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices required and/or desired resources for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices.

[005461 AA.61. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: the predefined time for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined amount of data for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined resources for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices is determined based on one or more of the following: required and/or desired latency of data to be received from and /or transmitted to each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, required and/or desired amount of data to be transmitted and/or received for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, required and/or desired resources for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices.

[005471 AA.62. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: the predefined time for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined amount of data for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined resources for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices is determined based on one or more of the following: minimal latency and/or period of data to be received from each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices,

minimal desired latency and/or period of data to be received from to each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, minimal latency and/or period of data to be transmitted to each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, minimal desired latency and/or period of data to be transmitted to each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, maximal latency and/or period of data to be received from each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, maximal desired latency and/or period of data to be received from to each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, maximal latency and/or period of data to be transmitted to each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, maximal desired latency and/or period of data to be transmitted to each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, required amount of data to be transmitted and/or received for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, desired amount of data to be transmitted and/or received for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, required resources for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, desired resources for each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, required functionality of each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices desired functionality of each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices.

[00548] AA.63. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: the predefined time for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined amount of data for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined resources for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices is determined based on a physical location of each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices.

[00549] AA.64. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: the predefined time for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined amount of data for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined resources for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices is determined based on a relative location of each device or the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, wherein the location is relative to one or more of the following: gateway, access point, neighboring devices, intentional interferer, non-intentional interferer,

[005501 AA.65. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: the predefined time for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined amount of data for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined resources for the substantial portion of the plurality of devices is determined based on a quality of the RF link and/or available RF links between the individual device and one or more of the following: the plurality of devices , a plurality of neighboring devices, a plurality of access points, a plurality of gateways, a plurality of devices that within a particular route.

[005511 AA.66. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the quality of the RF link is determined by one or more of the following: measuring RSSI (received signal strength indicator), measuring BER (bit error rate), measuring SER (symbol error rate), measuring PER (packet error rate) and predicting link quality based on a mathematical model. {005521 AA.67. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices form a mesh network.

[00553] AA.68. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of devices form a mesh network.

[00554] AA.69. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are substantially fixed in their physical location. 1005551 AA.70. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are fixed in their physical location.

[005561 AA.71. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein at least %, 60%, 80%, 90%, 95% or 98% of the plurality of devices are fixed in their physical location.

[00557] AA.72. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein interconnections within the network are determined by one or more of the following: the central computer, the cloud computing resource and the plurality of computing devices. 1005581 AA.73. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of a plurality of the routes within the network are determined by one or more of the following: the central computer, the cloud computing resource and the plurality of computing devices.

[00559] AA.74. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein interconnections within the network are determined by one or more of the following: the plurality of computing devices where none of the plurality of computing devices are in communication other computing devices; the plurality of computing devices where a substantial portion of the plurality of computing devices are in communication with a substantial portion of other computing devices; the plurality of computing devices where a portion of the plurality of computing devices are in communication with a portion of other computing devices; and the plurality of computing devices where the substantial portion of the plurality of computing devices are not in communication with other computing devices. 100560 AA.75. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein interconnections within the network are determined by one or more of the following: the central computer, at least two central computers, the central computer in communication with at least one other computer and at least two computers in communication with at least one other computer.

[00561] AA.76. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein at least a substantial portion of the routes within the network are determined by one or more of the following: the plurality of computing devices where none of the plurality of computing devices are in communication other computing devices; the plurality of computing devices where the substantial portion of the plurality of computing devices are in communication with a substantial portion of other computing devices; the plurality of computing devices where a portion of the plurality of computing devices are in communication with a portion of other computing devices; and the plurality of computing devices where a substantial portion of the plurality of computing devices are not in communication with other computing devices.

[005621 AA.77. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein at least a substantial portion of the routes within the network are determined by one or more of the following: the central computer, at least two central computers, the central computer in communication with at least one other computer and at least two computers in communication with at least one other computer.

[00563] AA.78. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein at least one central computer and/or computing device is the cloud computing resource

[00564] AA.79, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein interconnections within the network, or the substantial portion of the network, are determined based on one or more of the following: quality of the available RF links between the substantial portion of the devices making up the network;

quality of the available RF links between the substantial portion of the devices on at least one route;

required battery life for the individual devices, or the substantial portion of individual devices;

acceptable battery life for the individual devices, or the substantial portion of individual devices;

whether the individual devices, or the substantial portion of individual devices

is battery powered or have a constant supply of power;

the number of hops between the individual devices, or the substantial portion of individual devices, and the at least one gateway;

the number of hops in the selected or potential route;

aggregated bandwidth in the selected or potential route;

peak aggregated bandwidth in the selected or potential route;

minimal desired period and/or latency in the selected or potential route; minimal required period and/or latency in the selected or potential route; maximal desired period and/or latency in the selected or potential route; maximal required period and/or latency in the selected or potential route; and availability of alternative route.

[005651 AA.80. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein routes within the network, or the substantial portion of the network, are determined based on one or more of the following: quality of the available RF links between the substantial portion of the devices making up the network;

quality of the available RF links between the substantial portion of the devices on at least one route;

required battery life for the individual devices, or the substantial portion of individual devices;

acceptable battery life for the individual devices, or the substantial portion of individual devices;

whether the individual devices, or the substantial portion of individual devices

is battery powered or have a constant supply of power;

the number of hops between the individual devices, or the substantial portion of individual devices, and the at least one gateway;

the number of hops in the selected or potential route;

aggregated bandwidth in the selected or potential route;

peak aggregated bandwidth in the selected or potential route;

minimal desired period and/or latency in the selected or potential route;

minimal required period and/or latency in the selected or potential route; maximaldesiredperiodand/orlatencyintheselectedorpotentialroute; maximal required period and/or latency in theselected orpotential route;and availability of alternative route.

[005661 AA.81. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein network maintenance data is embedded into transmitted data and detected by the at least one receiving device. 1005671 AA.82. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein network maintenance data is directed to one or more of the following: the individual device; at least one individual device; a portion of the individual devices; a substantial portion of the individual devices; individual devices on a particular route; individual devices on a portion of a particular routes; individual devices on at least a portion of the plurality of routes; and individual devices on a substantial portion of the plurality of routes. 100568] AA.83. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein in substantial amount of occasions a broken link is fixed by changing routing and/or updating configuration of one, two or substantially small number of devices.

[005691 AA.83. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein resources are allocated so that a broken link is avoided by rerouting and/or reconfiguring one or more devices in close proximity to the broken link. 100570] AA.84. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the devices in close proximity to the broken link are no more than 10, 5, 3, 2, 1 or zero hops from the broken link, 1005711 AA.85. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the system includes at least one gateway.

[00572] AA.86. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the system includes one gateway.

[00573] AA.87. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the system includes at least one gateway that is configured by one or more of the following: the central computer, at least two central computers, the central computer in communication with at least one other computer and at least two computers in communication with at least one other computer.

[005741 AA.88. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the system includes at least one gateway and the at least one device in communication with the at least one gateway are configured by one or more of the following: the central computer, at least two central computers, the central computer in communication with at least one other computer and at least two computers in communication with at least one other computer.

[005751 AA.89. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the system includes at least one gateway and the plurality of devices in direct or indirect communication with the at least one gateway are configured by one or more of the following: the central computer, at least two central computers, the central computer in communication with at least one other computer and at least two computers in communication with at least one other computer.

[005761 AA.90. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the system includes at least two networks; the first at least one network includes at least one first gateway and a first collection of a plurality of devices in direct or indirect communication with the at least one first gateway; and the second at least one network includes at least one second gateway and a second collection of a plurality of devices in direct or indirect communication with the at least one second gateway; and the first at least one network and the second at least one network are configured by one or more of the following: the central computer, at least two central computers, the central computer in communication with at least one other computer and at least two computers in communication with at least one other computer such that interference between the first at least one network and the second at least one network is substantially reduced or eliminated,

[005771 AA.91, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer is capable of determining at least an approximate location of at least one first device of the plurality of devices, wherein the location is determined based on one or more of the following: a location of at least one second device of the plurality of devices and a quality of links within a portion of the network formed by the plurality of devices.

[00578J AA.92. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer is capable of determining at least an approximate location of a portion of the individual devices of the plurality of devices, wherein the location is determined based on one or more of the following: a location of at least one other device of the plurality of devices and a quality of links within a portion of the network formed by the plurality of devices.

[00579] AA.93.The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer is capable of determining at least an approximate location of a substantial portion of the individual devices of the plurality of devices, wherein the location is determined based on one or more of the following: a location of at least one other device of the plurality of devices and a quality of links within a portion of the network formed by the plurality of devices. 100580] AA.94. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion of the plurality of devices are one or more of the following: sensors and controllers. 1005811 AA.95. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion of the plurality of devices are associated with one or more of the following: sensors and controllers. 1005821 AA.96. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are one or more of the following: sensors and controllers.

[00583] AA.97. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are associated with one or more of the following: sensors and controllers.

[00584] AA.98. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer is capable of one or more of the following: receiving data, wherein a received data is one or more of the following: a data originated by at least one sensor from a plurality of sensors, a data originated by at least one controller from a plurality of controllers, a collection of data originated by a portion of sensors from the plurality of sensors, and a collection of data originated by a portion of controllers from the plurality of controllers.

creating a data to be sent to one or more of the following: a plurality of sensors and a plurality of controllers.

sending data to one or more of the following: a plurality of sensors and a plurality of controllers.

[005851 AA.99. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer is capable of performing one or more of the following: storing the received data, calculating data based on one or more of the following: the received data, the stored data, an external data and calculated data; analyzing one or more of the following: the received data, the stored data, the external data and the calculated data.

[00586] AA.100. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the data to be sent is created based on one or more of the following: the received data, the stored data, the calculated data, the external data and the result of analyzing the data. 1005871 AA101. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and/or controllers are installed in at least one site.

[00588] AA.102. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and/or controllers are installed in a plurality of sites.

[00589] AA.103. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer manages energy of one or more of the following: individual sites, a plurality of sites, and a portion of the plurality of sites. {00590] AA.104, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer improves energy efficiency of one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites. 1005911 AA.105. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer improves an aggregated energy efficiency of the portion of the plurality of sites

[005921 AA.106. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the energy efficiency is improved during peak hours.

[005931 AA107. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer reduces one or more of the following: peak energy consumption and peak current consumption, of one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites.

[00594] AA.108, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer reduces one or more of the following: aggregated peak energy consumption and aggregated peak current consumption, of the portion of the plurality of sites.

[00595] AA.109. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer reduces one or more of the following: aggregated peak energy consumption and aggregated peak current consumption, of the portion of the plurality of sites during peak hours.

[00596] AA.110. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer generates energy usage reports of one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites.

[00597] AA. Il1. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer monitors energy and/or current consumption in one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites.

[005981 AA.112. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer determines occupancy in one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites. 100599] AA.113. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer creates at least one behavioral pattern for site occupants in one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites.

[00600] AA.114. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer creates at least one pattern of environmental preferences of occupants one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites.

[006011 AA.115. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the data to be sent is created based on one or more of the following: the at least one behavioral pattern and the at least one pattern of environmental preferences

[00602] AA.116, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer adjusts the energy consumption in one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites, based at least on a portion of the external data.

[00603] AA.117. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the external data may be one or more of the following: price, peak price, future price, meteorological forecast and occupancy forecast.

[00604] AA.118. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and/or controllers are installed along at least one pipeline.

[00605] AA.119. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and/or controllers are installed in a plurality of pipelines.

[00606] AA.120. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer detects defects in the pipeline.

[00607] AA.121. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer detects leaks in the pipeline.

(006081 AA.122. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and / or controllers are associated with streetlights.

[006091 AA.123. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and / or controllers are installed in a plurality of streetlights.

[00610] AA.124. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer manages the plurality of streetlights. (006111 A.125. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer manages the plurality of streetlights based on one or more of the following: ambient light at individual streetlight, ambient light in a region, energy price, meteorological forecast, visibility of the moon and time of the day. 1006121 AA.126. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer detects fults in the plurality of streetlights

[00613] AA.127. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer manages the plurality of streetlights along the highway.

[00614] AA.128. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer detects a vehicle and turn the lights on in front of the vehicle.

[00615] AA.129. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer detects absence of the vehicle and turns the lights off in the absence of the vehicle.

[006161 AA.130. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer manages the plurality of streetlights based on one or more of the following: presence of humans in a street and presence of animals in the street.

[00617] AA.131. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality ofsensors and/or controllers are installed in agricultural field.

[00618] AA.132. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and / or controllers are installed in a plurality of agricultural fields. (00619] AA.133. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer determines one or more of the following: amount of water, amount of nutrients, and amount of chemical, needed for at least a region in the agricultural field.

[00620] AA.134. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer determines one or more of the following: moisture, amount of nutrients, and amount of chemical, present in at least a region in the agricultural field.

[006211 AA.135. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: amount of water, amount of nutrients, and amount of chemical, needed for the at least region in the agricultural field is determined based on one or more of the following: one or more of the following; moisture, amount of nutrients, and amount of chemical, present in at least a region in the agricultural field, meteorological conditions, meteorological forecast, time of year, time of the day, type of soil, and type of crop.

[00622] AA.136. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer detects faults in irrigation system.

[00623] AA.137. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer determines at least an approximate location of a potential fire. 1006241 AA.138. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and / or controllers are installed in one or more of the following: forest, bush and farm.

[00625] AA.139. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a portion of the plurality of sensors and/or controllers are distributed so that the distance between adjacent sensors and/or controllers is at most 20m, 30,5m, I 00m, and 200m.

[006261 AA.140. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and/or controllers are distributed by dropping of an aircraft.

[006271 AA.141. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and / or controllers are installed in one or more of the following: car parks, at parking spots on a street, and along a road.

[00628] AA.142. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer determines occupancy of an individual parking spot.

[00629) AA.143. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer determines utilization of one or more of the following: car park, portion of the car park, region in the car park, and plurality of car parks. 100630] AA.144. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer uses parking spot occupancy to assist in finding an available parking spot.

[00631] AA.145, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the computer adjusts the energy consumption in one or more of the following: individual sites, the plurality of sites, and the portion of the plurality of sites, based at least on a portion of the external data.

[00632] AA.146. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the extemal data may be one or more of the following: price, peak price, future price, meteorological forecast and occupancy forecast.

[00633] AA,147. A method of adjusting energy consumption within a space comprising: deploying a plurality of networked sensors that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data, wherein the plurality of networked sensors are deployed such that they are substantially distributed throughout the space and at least a portion of the plurality of networked sensors collected one or more of the following types of data: temperature, noise level, humidity level, light level and strength of radio frequency;

associating a plurality of networked controllers that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data with at least one sensor and/or at least one other controller, wherein the plurality of networked controllers are deployed such that they sufficiently control the energy consumption and/or energy distribution of the space to be adjusted;

deploying a plurality of feedback devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data, wherein at least a substantial portion the plurality of feedback devices are capable of being activated to indicate one or more of the following by one or more persons: the environment is comfortable, the temperature is too is cold, the temperature is hot, the humidity is to high, the humidity is too low, the noise level is to high, the noise level is too low, the light is too high and the light is too low;

collecting sensor data and feedback data in substantially real time and providing that data to a computer; using the computer to approximate one or more environmental preference ranges based at least in part on the feedback data collected from the individual feedback devices; and if desired, adjusting the energy consumption by instructing one or more of the plurality of networked controllers to modify one or more control parameters, wherein the instruction to adjust energy consumption in the space is based at least in part on maintaining the space within, or moving to space towards, the space to some portion of the one or more environmental preference ranges; maintaining one or more environmental preference ranges; maintaining the space within an aggregation of the one or more environmental preference ranges; and the space within an aggregation of the one or more environmental preference ranges; maintaining the space within a predicted one or more environmental preference ranges; maintaining the space within an aggregation of the one or more environmental preference ranges; and moving the space to one or more of the based at least in part on one or more of the following: the sensor data collected; the a e p , projected future ranges, the feedback data, the one or more acceptable environmental preferences and load information.

1006341 AA.148. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and/or controllers are installed in at least one site.

[00635] AA.149. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of sensors and/or controllers are installed in at least one site. {00636] AA.150. A method of controlling a plurality of water heaters in substantially real time based at least in part on collecting temperature data on a substantial portion of the water heaters in substantially real time, collecting data on energy grid load and based on the collected information instructing one or more of the plurality of water heaters do perform one or more of the following functions: increase heating to one or more of the plurality of water heaters; decreasing heating to one or more of the plurality of water heaters; increase heating to a portion of the plurality of water heaters, 100637] B.. A network system comprising: a plurality of devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data in which at least three portions of the plurality of devices form a network: a first portion of the plurality of devices transmits an amount of data to a second portion of the plurality of devices and the second portion of the plurality of devices receives the amount of data from the first portion of the plurality of devices; a third portion of the plurality of devices is capable of receiving the amount of data from the first portion of the plurality of devices without the first portion of the plurality of devices transmitting the amount of data to the third portion of the plurality of devices; and a substantial portion of the plurality of devices perform substantially no networking related functions. 1006381 B.2. A network system comprising: a plurality of devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data in which at least three portions of the plurality of devices form a network, wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices use the ability of transmitting and/or receiving data to communicate with at least one other device of the plurality of devices further comprising: a first portion of the plurality of devices transmits an amount of data to a second portion of the plurality of devices and the second portion of the plurality of devices receives the amount of data from the first portion of the plurality of devices; a third portion of the plurality of devices is capable of receiving the amount of data from the first portion of the plurality of devices without the first portion of the plurality of devices transmitting the amount of data to the third portion of the plurality of devices; and a substantial portion of the plurality of devices perform substantially no networking related functions.

[00639] B.3. A network system comprising: a plurality of devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data in which at least three portions of the plurality of devices form a network: at least one first device of the first portion of the plurality of devices transmits an amount of data to at least one second device of the second portion of the plurality of devices and the at least one second device of the second portion of the plurality of devices receives the amount of data from the at least one first device of the first portion of the plurality of devices; at least one third device of the third portion of the plurality of devices is capable of receiving the amount of data from the at least one first device of the first portion of the plurality of devices without the at least one first device of the first portion of the plurality of devices transmitting the amount of data to at least one third device of the third portion of the plurality of devices; and a substantial portion of the plurality of devices perform substantially no networking related functions. 1006401 B.4. A network system comprising: a plurality of networked devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; and the plurality of networked devices communicate within the network via multiple hops; wherein a substantial portion of the network devices perform substantially no networking related functions. 1006411 B.S. A network system comprising: a plurality of networked devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein a substantial portion of the network devices perform substantially no networking related functions and the substantial portion of the plurality of networked devices are connected in a wireless star topology. {00642] B.6. A network system comprising: a plurality of networked devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein a substantial portion of the network devices perform substantially no networking related functions and the substantial portion of the plurality of networked devices are connected in a wireless ring topology.

[006431 B.7. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of devices is at least 5, 10, 50, 100 or 500 devices, 1006441 B.8. the network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the first portion of the plurality of devices is at least 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 500 devices. 1006451 B.9. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the second portion of the plurality of devices is at least 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 500 devices.

[00646] B.10. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the third portion of the plurality of devices is at least 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 500 devices.

[00647] B.11. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices communicate within the network system via multiple hops. 100648] B.12. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the networking related functions are one or more of the following: determining whether data received at the individual device needs to be stored at the individual device, based on the received data, determining whether data received, or a portion of the data received, at the individual device needs to be forwarded to another device, based on the received data; determining available routes, determining available routes by analyzing received data determining available routes by sending data determining available routes by receiving data; determining whether a transmitted packet was properly received, based at least in part, on subsequent reception of ACK or NACK, determining whether a transmitted packet was properly received, based at least in part, on failure to subsequently receive ACK or NACK, sending ACK based on successful reception sending NACK or no data based on unsuccessful reception.

[00649] B.13. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices perform no networking related functions.

[00650] B.14. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein at least 95%, 98%, 99%, 99.5% or 100% of the plurality of devices perform no networking related functions, 100651] B.15. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices communicate within the network system via at least 3, 5,10, 50, 100, 200, 1000 or 5000 hops. 1006521 B.16. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices communicate within the network system via at least 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 or11 routes and a substantial portion of the routes are at least 3, 5, 10, 50, 100, 200, 1000 or 5000 hops. 100653] C.1. A network system comprising: A plurality of devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein a substantial portion of the devices perform one or more of the following: transmit and/or receive data at predefined times, transmit and/or receive a predefined amount of data and transmits and/or receives using a predefined resource; wherein one or more of the following: predefined times, predefined amounts of data, and predefined resources, for the substantial portion of the devices, are allocated to substantially maximize a ratio of a net system throughput to an available system throughput; and wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device to a bandwidth available at the device is equal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0.00001%.

1006541 C.2. A network system comprising: A plurality of devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; wherein a substantial portion of the devices perform one or more of the following: transmit and/or receive information at predefined times, transmit and/or receive a predefined amount of data and transmit and/or receive using a predefined resource; wherein one or more of the following: predefined times, predefined amounts of data, and predefined resources, for the substantial portion of the devices, are allocated to substantially maximize a ratio of a net system throughput to an available system throughput; wherein a ratio of an amount of data originating at a first portion of the devices and/or transmitted for use by the first portion of the devices to a total bandwidth of the network is equal to or more than 0.1%, 1%, 5%,10%, 30%, 50%, 75%, 90%, 95% or 99%; and wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at a second portion of the devices and/or transmitted for use by the second portion of the devices to a total bandwidth of the network is equal to or less than 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% , 0,00001 or 0.000001%.

[006551 C.3. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the ratio of a net system throughput to the available system throughput is at least 50%, %, 90%, 95%, 98%, 99%, 99.5%, 99.9% or 99.99o.

[00656] C.15. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices.

[006571 C.16. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices.

[006581 C.17. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices and the substantial portion of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices.

[00659) C.21. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined resources are one or more of the following: frequency channel, spreading code sequence, starting position in spreading code, frequency hopping sequence, time slot and FDD bins.

[00660] C.23. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 5, 25, 50, 100, 500 or 1000 devices, and the substantial portion of devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefinedtimesapredefinedamountofdatausingapredefinedresource;andtransmit atpredefined times a predefined amount of datausing a predefined resource and receive at predefined times apredefined amount ofdatausing apredefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the substantial portion of the devices and/or received from the substantial portion of the devices. 1006611 C.24. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 500, 5000, 20000 or 100000 of devices and the substantial portion of devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the substantial portion of the devices and/or received from the substantial portion of the devices. 1006621 C.25. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 50000, 500000, 10000000 or 50000000 devices and the substantial portion of devices perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the substantial portion of the devices and/or received from the substantial portion of the devices.

[00663] C.26. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the predefined times, one or more of the predefined amounts of data and/or one or more of the predefined resources is calculated using a predefined set of rules and/or a predefined set of instructions.

[00664] C.27.1. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the predefined times, one or more of the predefined amounts of data and/or one or more of the predefined resources is calculated using the predefined set

-111l- of rules and/or the predefined set of instructions based at least in part on a predefined initial state and/or a seed value.

[00665] C.27.2. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the device is equal to or less than 1 bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits. 1006661 C.28. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device is equal to or less than I bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits.

[006671 C.29. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device is equal to or less than I byte, 4 bytes, 16 bytes or 48 bytes.

[006681 C.30. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device is equal to or more than I bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits.

[00669] C.31. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device is equal to or more than I byte, 4 bytes, 16 bytes or 48 bytes. 1006701 C.32. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data transmitted and/or received at the device is at least 100 bytes, 1000 bytes, 16000 bytes or 48000 bytes 100671] C.33. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data from a second device is appended to the data received from a first device and is transmitted to the third device. 100672 C.34. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at a device is appended to the data received from at least 5, 25, 100, 500, 1000, 10000 or 1000000 other devices at the device and the aggregated data from the devices is transmitted to at least one next device.

[00673] C.35. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at a device is appended to the data received from at least 5, 25, 100, 500, 1000, 10000 or 1000000 other devices at the device and the aggregated data from the devices is transmitted to at least one gateway.

[00674) C.36. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amounts of data intended for a selected portion of the devices on the network is transmitted from the gateway to at least one first device, and the at least one first device performs one or more of the following: forwards the predefined amounts of data to at least one second device; extracts a predefined amount of data and forwards the predefined amounts of data to at least one second device; extracts a predefined amount of data, extracts a portion of the predefined amount of data and forwards the remaining portion of the predefined amounts of data to at least a second device; extracts a portion of the predefined amount of data and forwards at least a first, second or third portion of the remaining predefined amounts of data to at least a second, third or fourth device; extracts a portion of the predefined amount of data and forwards to one or more of the at least a first, second or third portions of the remaining predefined amounts of data to one or more other devices, wherein the structure and sequencing of the predefined amounts of data is modified. 1006751 C.37. The network system of one ormore of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device to a bandwidth available at the device is equal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0.00001%.

1006761 C.38. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device to the bandwidth available at the device is between 10% to 0.00001%, % to 0.0001%, 1% to 0.001%, 0.1% to 0.0001%, 0.003% to 0.012%, 0.0003% to 0.0012%, 1% to 0.0003% or 0.00003% to 0.0015%. 100677] C.39. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device to the bandwidth available at the at least one gateway is equal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0.00001%. 1006781 C.40. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the device and/or transmitted for use by the device to the bandwidth available at the at least one gateway is between 10% to 0.00001%, 5% to 0.0001%, 1% to 0.001%, 0.1% to 0.0001%, 0.003% to 0.012%, 0.0003% to 0.0012%, 1% to 0.0003% or 0.00003% to 0.0015%.

[00679 C.41. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the ratio of an aggregated amount of data transmitted and/or received at the at least one gateway to the available bandwidth at the at least one gateway is at least 10%, 25%, %, 75%,90%, 95%,98%,99%,99,5%,99,9%,99.99% or 99.999%.

[006801 C.42. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the available bandwidth is approximately equal to or at least 1/128, 1/64, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, or 1 of the total bandwidth.

[00681} C.43. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the available bandwidth is between 0.4% to 100%, 0.8% to 100%, 1.5% to 100%, 3.1% to 100%, 6% to 100%, 12% to 100%, 25% to 100%, 50% to 100%, 75% to 100%, 90% to 100%, 25% to 75%, 0.4% to 12%, 3.1% to 25% or 6% to 50% of the total bandwidth.

[006821 C.44. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein each device or the substantial portion of the devices extract information that is transmitted for use at the device by using one or more predefined offsets and/or one or more predefined amounts of data.

[00683] C.45. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the devices transmit and/or receive for a predefined period of time. 100684] C.46. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at leastnanosecond, 10 nanoseconds or 100 nanoseconds 1006851 C.47. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most nanosecond, 10 nanoseconds or 100 nanoseconds

[00686) C.48. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at leastImicrosecond, 10 microseconds or 100 microseconds

[00687] C.49. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most Imicrosecond, 10 microseconds or 100 microseconds

[006881 C.50. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at leastImilisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds.

[006891 C.51 The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most Imilisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds

[00690] C.52. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least I second, 10 seconds or 100 seconds

[00691] C.53. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most I second, 10 seconds or 100 seconds 1006921 C.54. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least imilisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds and an amount of data is variable. 1006931 C.54. The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein the time period is predefined and the amount of data is variable. 1006941 C.55. The network system of one or more of the examples, where the amount of data is substantially the same and/or variable. 100695] C.56,The network system of one or more of the examples, wherein a resource is substantially the same and/or variable. 1006961 C.57. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices form a mesh network.

[006971 C.68. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of devices form a mesh network.

[00698] C.69, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are substantially fixed in their physical location.

[00699] C.70. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are fixed in their physical location. 1007001 C.71. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein at least %, 60%, 80%, 90%, 95% or 98% of the plurality of devices are fixed in their physical location.

[007011 D.l, A method of providing security to a system of devices, wherein: (a) a substantial portion of the individual devices are individually assigned at least one initial seed value;

(b) a substantial portion of the individual devices are configured to form at least a two hop network;

(c) the initial seed value assigned to the individual devices is used for generating one time keys; and

(d) the one time-keys are used to encrypt and/or decrypt data as the data is moved between the individual devices that form the at least two hop network.

[00702] D.2. The method of one or more examples, wherein the least one initial seed value is shared by no more than a predefined number of individual devices.

[00703] D.3. The method of one or more examples, wherein the data is forwarded from a first device to a second device in the at least two hop network and the second device receives the data from the first device; and the data that is forwarded from the second devices to a third device in the at least two hop network is one of the following: the received first set of data, the first set of received data and a second set of data generated at the second device, a modified first set of received data generated at the second device and the modified first set of received data and a second set data. 100704j D4. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the data previously received at the individual device is used to ascertain security of a communication link.

[00705] D.S. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the data previously received at the individual device is signed and the signature is used to ascertain security of the communication link.

[00706] D.6. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein a hash value of the data previously received at the individual device is calculated and the hash value is used to ascertain security of the communication link. {00707] D.7. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein data previously transmitted to the individual device is used to ascertain security of the communication link.

[00708] D.8. The method system of one or more of the examples, wherein data previously transmitted to the individual device is signed and the signature is used to ascertain security of the communication link.

[00709] D.9. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the hash value of data previously transmitted to the individual device is calculated and the hash value is used to ascertain security of the communication link,

[007101 D.10. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the data is signed and the signature is used to authenticate the sender.

[007111 D.11. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the signature is divided into portions and the portions are transmitted one after another to a receiving device.

[00712] D.12. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein encrypted data is signed and the signature is used to authenticate the sender. 1007131 D.13. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the received information at the individual device is validated based on successful reception of at least a predefined portion of the signature.

[007141 D.14. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the received information at the individual device is rejected if at least one of the portions of the subsequently received signature is considered incorrect. 1007151 D.15. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the one time key is generated at one or more substantially predefined times.

[00716] D.16. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the one time key is generated at one or more substantially predefined times even if no data is received at the individual device.

[00717] D.17. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein a sender and a receiver have synchronized deterministic random bit generators and the synchronized deterministic random bit generators uses the same initial seed value and the synchronized deterministic random bit generator generates a new random value for the packet of data sent by the individual device and/or received at the individual device. 100718] D.18. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the new random value is used in chain block cypher.

[00719] D.19. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the new random value is not transmitted between individual devices.

[00720] D.20. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the individual devices keep records of the signature on the latest data received.

[007211 D.21. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the latest data received at the individual device is comprised of at least 2, 5, 10, 20 or 100 packets of historical data received.

[00722} D.22. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the latest data received at the individual device does not include received signatures.

[00723] D.23. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the encryption is end-to-end between each device, or the substantial portion of devices, and a central computer. 1007241 D.24. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein each device signs the data it is about to transmit or that was previously transmitted or that will be transmitted in the future and appends the signature to the data to be transmitted and/or modifies the signature received so the length of the new signature is substantially the same as the length of the received signature. 1007251 D.25. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the individual devices signs the data it is about to transmit or that was previously transmitted or that will be transmitted in the future and appends the signature to the data to be transmitted and/or modifies the signature received so the length of the new signature is substantially the same as the length of the received signature.

[00726] D.26, The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the individual devices signs the data it is about to transmit or that was previously transmitted or that will be transmitted in the future, and the signature is denoted St, and the received signature is denoted Sr, and the signature appended to the data to be transmitted is denoted as Sf, and Sf is a function of St and/or Sr, and Length(Sf) substantially the same Length(Sr).

[00727] D.27. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein each device, or substantial portion of the devices, form a tree like network and share the same secret key 1007281 D.28. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein none of the individual devices, or a substantially small portion of individual devices forming the tree like network is aware of the structure of network. 100729} D.29. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the central computer knows the initial seed values of all, or the substantial portion of, devices forming the network

[00730] D.30. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein each individual device, or the substantial portion of individual devices, ceases to transmit and/ or receive data after receiving a predefined number of invalid packets.

1007311 D.31. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein each device, or the substantial portion of devices, ceases to perform an action based on the received information after receiving the predefined number of invalid packets.

[007321 D.32. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the invalid packet is the packet that contains an invalid signature.

[00733] D.33. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of individual devices receive data from a previous individual device on the uplink, the data contains the signature to authenticate the sender, and the individual device that received the data performs one or more of the following: forwards the data; and appends the new data to the data received, modifies the signature, so that new signature includes the signature on the new data and the length of the new signature is substantially the same as the length of the received signature, and then forwards the data to another individual device.

[00734] D.34. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the signature of last data received on the downlink is also embedded in the signature sent on the uplink. 1007351 D.35. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the central computer receives the data transmitted from the substantial portion of the devices, or a portion of the devices, forming the tree like network, and keys used to sign the data are also used to determine one or more broken links in the tree like network.

[00736] D.36. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein keys used to sign the data are also used to determine one or more broken links in the tree like network.

[00737] D.37. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the signature received on the uplink is used to verify the integrity of the downlink. 100738] D.38. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the information sent on the downlink is followed by the signature on the sent data in subsequent transmissions.

[00739] D.39. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein at least one individual device ceases to transmit and/or receive data based on the received information after failing to receive and/or validate a predefined of portion of the signature on the previously received information.

[00740] D.40. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein at least one individual device ceases to perform an action based on the received information after failing to receive and/or validate a predefined of portion of the signature on the previously received information.

[00741] D.41. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the individual device cease to transmit and/or receive data based on the received information after failing to receive and/or validate a predefined of portion of the signature on the previously received information.

[007421 D.42, The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the individual device cease to perform an action based on the received information after failing to receive and/or validate a predefined of portion of the signature on the previously received information. 1007431 D.43. The method of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined number of individual devices sharing the same initial seed value is 2, 3, 5 or 10.

[00744] E.1. A plurality of network systems comprising: (a) at least a first network system comprising a first plurality of devices and a substantial portion of the first plurality of devices are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; and no first network infrastructure devices or at least one first network infrastructure device; (b) at least a second network system comprising a second plurality of devices and a substantial portion of the second plurality of devices are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; and no second network infrastructure devices or at least one second network infrastructure device; and (c) a combined sum of the first and the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems have a ratio to a combined sum of the first and second plurality of devices of the plurality of network systems is between 0 to 0.01. 1007451 E.2. A plurality of network systems comprising: (a) at least a first network system comprising a first plurality of devices and a substantial portion of the first plurality of devices are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; and no first network infrastructure devices or at least one first network infrastructure device; (b) at least a second network system comprising a second plurality of devices and a substantial portion of the second plurality of devices are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; and no second network infrastructure devices or at least one second network infrastructure device; and

(c) a combined cost sum of the first and the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems have a cost ratio to a combined cost sum of the first and second plurality of devices of the plurality of network systems is between 0 to 0.01. 1007461 E,3. A plurality of network systems comprising: (a) at least a first network system comprising a first plurality of devices and a substantial portion of the first plurality of devices are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; and no first network infrastructure devices or at least one first network infrastructure device; (b) at least a second network system comprising a second plurality of devices and a substantial portion of the second plurality of devices are capable of transmitting and/or receiving data; and no second network infrastructure devices or at least one second network infrastructure device; (c) a combined sum of the first and second plurality of devices is greater than 50; and (d) a combined sum of the first and the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems have ratio to the combined sum of the first and second plurality of devices wherein the of the plurality of network systems is between 0 to 0.01.

[00747] E.4. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the combined sum of the plurality of devices is at least 25, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 or 10000.

[00748] E.5. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the combined sum of the plurality of devices is at least 50000, 200000,500000,1000000,5000000,10000000,50000000or 100000000.

[00749) E.6. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the combined sum of the plurality of devices is between 25 to 200, 25 to 1000, 25 to 10000, 100 to 10000 or 500 to 10000. 100750] E.7, The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the combined sum of the plurality of devices is between 200 to 20000, 200 to 50000, 200 to 100000, 10000 to 1000000 or 10000 to 10000000. 100751) E.8. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the combined sum of the plurality of devices is between 200 to 200000, 200to 500000,200to 1000000, 10000to 10000000or 10000to1000000000. (007521 E.9. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the combined sum of the first and the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems have a ratio to the combined sum of the first and second plurality of devices of the plurality of network systems is between 0 to 0.005, between 0 to 0.001, between 0 to 0.0001, between 0 to 0.00001, between 0 to 0.000001 or between 0 to 0.0000001.

[007531 E.10. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the combined cost sum of the first and the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems have a cost ratio to the combined cost sum of the first and second plurality of devices of the plurality of network systems is between 0 to 0.005, between 0 to 0.001, between 0 to 0.0001, between 0 to 0.00001, between 0 to 0.000001 or between 0 to 0.0000001.

[007541 E.11. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems are access points,

[007551 E.12. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems are access points.

[007561 E.13. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems are routers.

[00757] E.14. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems are routers. 100758] E.15. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the first and/or the second network devices of the plurality of network systems create a star topology network and at least one the individual network infrastructure device is in the middle region of the star topology network.

[007591 E.16. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems receive data and based on the content of the received data forward the substantially the same data to at least one other device.

[00760] E.17. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems receive data and based on the content of the received data forward the substantially the same data to at least one other network infrastructure device.

[00761] E.18. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems send an amount of data to at least one other network infrastructure device and the at least one other network infrastructure device receives the amount of data and the at least one other network infrastructure device uses the received data to obtain routing information.

[00762] E.19. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems receive a data packet and the data packet contains an address of the sender.

[00763] E.20. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems receive a data packet and the data packet contains an address of an intended recipient. 1007641 E.21. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems receive a data packet and the data packet contains information about a route of the data packet.

[00765] E.22. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems receive the data packet and the data packet contains information about a number of hops in the route. 100766] E.23. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems receive data and forwards data to at least one other device and the received data contains address information and the forwarded data contains address information and the address information contained in the forwarded data is different from the address information contained in the received data.

[00767] E.24. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein at least one of the devices of the first and the second network devices of the plurality of network systems perform a network infrastructure function.

[00768] E.25. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein at least one of the devices of the first and the second network devices of the plurality of network systems is an access point and/or router.

[007691 E.26. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein at least one of the devices of the first and the second network devices of the plurality of network systems perform a network infrastructure function and is treated as a network infrastructure device.

[00770] E27. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion or the substantial portion of the first and/or the second network infrastructure devices of the plurality of network systems receive data from at least one of the devices and/or transmit data to the at least one of the other devices using at least one physical resource and then transmits the data and/or the received data to at least one other individual network infrastructure device using at least one other physical resource.

1007711 E.28.The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the first and the second network devices of the plurality of network systems have at most an 8 bit MPU. 1007721 F.29.The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the first and the second network devices of the plurality of network systems have an amount of RAM equal or less than 4k byte, 8k byte or 16 kbyte.

[007731 E.30. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion first and the second network devices of the plurality of network systems have an amount of ROM or FLASH memory equal or less than 32k bytes, 64k bytes, 128k bytes or 256k bytes.

[007741 E.31. The plurality of network systems of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the first and the second network devices of the plurality of network systems operate at clock speed of no more than 16MHz, 32 MHz or 64 MHz.

[00775] F,1. A systemcomprising: a plurality of devices where a portion of the devices individually perform one or more of the following: transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmit at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receive at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; addressing and/or routing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted to the portion of the devices and/or received from the portion of the devices; and the portion of the devices are one or more of the following: a sensor and a controller. 100776] F.2. A large area network management system comprising: at least 1000 devices distributed over the large area network; at least one central computer that is capable of managing a substantial portion of the at least 1000 devices, a plurality of controllers that are associated with a plurality of a second plurality of devices, wherein the central computer is capable for the substantial portion of devices of one or more of the following: collecting information from a portion of the devices; using the information collected to instruct a portion of the devices to wirelessly optimize a set of constraints. 1007771 F.3. A system comprising: a central computer; at least 1000 sensing devices that are capable of sensing a predefined set of parameters, and are capable of transmitting data regarding the predefined set of parameters to the central computer; at least 1000 controllers associate with at least 1000 functional devices that are capable of changing the state of the system; the at least 1000 controllers that are capable of receiving data from the central computer; a set of constraints; a set of parameters that need to be optimized; the central computer that is capable of optimizing the system based at least in part on the data received from the at least 1000 sensors and the set of constraints, and wherein the data sent from the central computer to the controller is less 8 bits, 16 bits or 32 bits; and wherein the data sent from the at least 1000 sensors to the central computer is less 8 bits, 16 bits or 32 bits.

[00778] F.4. The systems pf one or more examples, wherein the data is received from sensors and/or controllers installed on a plurality of sites, and wherein the above data is used to perform one or more of the following; optimize energy use of one, portion of, a substantial portion of sites; optimize energy use with regard to entire plurality or a substantial portion of plurality of sites; minimize peak power and/or current consumption in entire plurality or a substantial portion of sites, portion of sites, individual sites.

[00779] F.5. The of one or more examples, wherein the received data is used to generate energy usage reports. 100780] F.6. The system of one or more examples, wherein the received data is used to determine occupancy in a portion or portions of individual site or a plurality of sites.

[00781] F.7 The system of one or more examples, wherein the received data is used to create behavioral pattern for site occupants. 1007821 F.8. The system of one or more examples, wherein the received data is used to predict the future energy use.

[00783] F.9. The system of one or more examples, wherein the data received is used to optimize and/or adjust environmental conditions of individual site or a plurality of sites. 100784] F.10. The system of one or more examples, wherein the data received is used to learn about and/or create patterns of environmental preferences of occupants of individual site or a plurality of sites. 1007851 F.11. The system of one or more examples, wherein the devices are installed along the pipeline and the data collected from those devices is used to perform one or more of the following: perform routine check, detect defects.

[007861 F.12. The system of one or more examples, wherein the defect results in a leak from the pipe.

[00787] G. A system comprised of: at least one base station; a plurality of devices, wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of transmitting data; the at least one base station is capable of receiving the data from a substantial portion of the plurality of devices and the at least one base station is capable of transmitting data to a substantial portion of the plurality of devices which are capable of receiving the data; the substantial portion of the devices individually perform one or more of the following: transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and the at least one base station performs one or more of the following: transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource; and transmits at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource and receives at predefined times a predefined amount of data using a predefined resource.

[00788] G.2. A system comprised of: at least one base station; a plurality of devices, wherein a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of transmitting data; the at least one base station is capable of receiving the data from a substantial portion of the plurality of devices and the at least one base station is capable of transmitting data to a substantial portion of the plurality of devices which are capable of receiving the data; the substantial portion of the devices individually perform one or more of the following: transmit using a predefined set of resources; receive data using a predefined set of resources; and the at least one base station performs one or more of the following: transmits data to the substantial portion of individual devices using a predefined set of resources; receives data from the substantial portion of individual devices using a predefined set of resources.

[00789] G.3 The system of one or more examples, wherein the at least one base station is a sub-base station.

[00790] G.4. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the base station may be one or more of the following: base station, gateway, access point and router.

[00791] 0.5. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the sub base station may be one or more of the following: sub-base station, gateway, access point and router.

[00792] G,6. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined set of resources may contain one or more of the following: predefined time, predefined resource and predefine amount of data.

[00793] 0.7. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein addressing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted by a portion of the plurality of devices and/or received by the portion of the plurality devices; and the addressing information is substantially absent in the data transmitted by the at least one base station and/or received by the at least one base station.

[00794] G.8. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein code division modulation is used to transmit and/or receive the data.

[00795] G.9. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a data rate is variable. 1007961 G.10. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the data rate is predefined based on the quality of the RF link between the at least one base station and the at least one individual device.

[00797] G.11. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined transmission time for the portion of the plurality of devices is substantially determined based on a quality of the RF link between the at least one base station and at least one individual device of the portion of the plurality of devices.

[00798] G.12. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined transmission time for a portion of the plurality of devices is selected to substantially minimise the near-far effect.

[00799] G.13. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined time is replaced with a predefined offset in CDMA pseudo-random sequence.

[008001 G.14. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion of the plurality of devices are substantially fixed in their location or fixed in their location, 1008011 G.15. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are substantially fixed in their location or fixed in their location. 100802] G.16. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion of the plurality of devices are capable of moving within a substantially predefined region.

[008031 G.17. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are capable of moving within a substantially predefined region.

[00804] G.18. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantially predefined region is determined by one or more of the following: quality of the uplink; quality of the downlink;, quality of the uplink and downlink; predicted quality of the uplink; predicted quality of the downlink; predicted quality of the uplink and downlink; calculated quality of the uplink; calculated quality of the downlink; calculated quality of the uplink and downlink; and distance between the at least one base station and the at least one individual device of the portion of the plurality of devices.

[00805] G19, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantially predefined region is capable of being varied with time.

[00806] G.20. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the individual device may be one or more of the following: individual device, sub-base station, gateway, access point and router.

[008071 G.21. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion of the plurality of devices form a multi-hop mesh network.

[00808] 0.22. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the multi-hop mesh network has at least one route that has at least 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 1000 hops.

[00809] 0.23. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion of the plurality of devices form at least one multi-hop mesh network.

[00810] G.23. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the at least one multi-hop mesh network has at least one route that has at least 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 1000 hops. 1008111 0.24. The system of one or more of the examples further comprising: a first portion of the plurality of devices that are capable of acting as sub-base stations and are capable of forming a sub-network; a second portion of the plurality of devices that function as devices; and/or a third portion of the plurality of devices that are capable of acting as gateways and are capable of forming at least one multi-hop sub-network.

[00812] G.25. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the at least one multi-hop mesh sub-network has at least one route that has at least 2, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 1000 hops,

[00813] 0.26, The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the first portion of the plurality of devices is at least 0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 5%, 10%, 25% or 50% of the plurality of devices.

[008141 G.27. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the first portion of the plurality of devices is between 0.1% to 50%, 0.1% to 1%, 0.1% to 5%,

0.5.% to 2%, 0.5% to 5%, 1% to 5%, 1% to 10% or 25% to 50%. of the plurality of devices.

[00815] G.28. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the third portion of the plurality of devices is at least 0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 5%, 10%, 25% or 50% of the plurality of devices.

[008161 G.29. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the third portion of the plurality of devices is between 0.1% to 50%, 0.1% to 1%, 0.1% to 5%, 0.5.% to 2%, 0.5% to 5%, 1% to 5%, 1% to 10% or 25% to 50%. of the plurality of devices.

[00817] G.29.1 The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the second portion of the plurality of devices has at least substantially the same functionality as the plurality of devices. 1008181 0.30. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the second portion of the plurality of devices is the same as the plurality of devices.

[00819] G.31. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the sub network is one or more of the following: the one hop network and the multi- hop network.

[00820] G.32. The system of one or more of the examples further comprising: at least two base stations; and a plurality of devices, wherein the predefined times and/or predefined resources are allocated so that the interference or the potential interference between at least one individual device and the at least one other individual device is substantially reduced. 1008211 G.33. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the at least one individual device is capable of communicating with at least one first based station using the set of predefined resources, and the at least one individual device is capable of communicating with at least one second base station using the set of predefined resources; wherein the at least one first based station is one or more of the following: the at least one base station and the sub-base station; and wherein the at least one second based station is one or more of the following: the at least one base station and the sub-base station.

[008221 G.34. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the at least one individual device is capable of communicating with the at least one first base station using the first set of predefined resources, and the least one individual device is capable of communicating with the at least one second base station using the second set of predefined resources

[00823] G.35. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices. 100824] 0.36. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the portion of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices. 100825] 0.37. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices and the portion of the devices is at least 5, 10, 20, 50 or 500 devices. 100826] G.38. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the address of individual devices is established and/or derived based on a set of information pertaining to at least a portion of the system, and the set of information includes one or more of the following: one or more predefined times, one or more predefined amounts of data and one or more predefined resources. 1008271 G.39. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the predefined times, one or more of the predefined amounts of data and/or one or more of the predefined resources is calculated using a predefined set of rules and/or a predefined set of instructions. 100828] G.40. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the predefined times, one or more of the predefined amounts of data and/or one or more of the predefined resources is calculated using the predefined set of rules and/or the predefined set of instructions based at least in part on a predefined initial state and/or a seed value.

[00829] G.41. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device is equal to or less than I bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits.

[00830] G.42. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device is equal to or less than 1 bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits.

[00831] G.43. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device is equal to or less than I byte, 4 bytes, 16 bytes or 48 bytes.

[008321 G.44. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device is equal to or more than I bit, 8 bits, 16 bits or 48 bits. 1008331 G.45. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device is equal to or more than I byte, 4 bytes, 16 bytes or 48 bytes.

[00834] 0.46. he system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined amount of data transmitted and/or received at the individual device is at least 100 bytes, 1000 bytes, 16000 bytes or 48000 bytes.

[00835] G.47. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device to a bandwidth available at the individual device is equal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0.00001%.

[00836] G.48. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device to a bandwidth available at the individual device is between % to 0.00001%, 5% to 0.0001%, 1% to 0.001%, 0.1% to 0.0001%, 0.003% to 0.012%, 0.0003% to 0.0012%, 1% to 0.0003% or 0.00003% to 0.0015%.

[00837] G,49. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device to a bandwidth available at the at least one gateway is equal to or less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.0001% or 0.00001%.

[00838] 0.50. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a ratio of the predefined amount of data originating at the individual device and/or transmitted for use by the individual device to a bandwidth available at the at least one gateway is between 10% to 0.00001%, 5% to 0.0001%, 1% to 0.001%, 0.1% to 0.0001%, 0.003% to 0.012%, 0.0003% to 0.0012%, 1% to 0.0003% or 0.00003% to 0,0015%. 1008391 G.51. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the ratio of an aggregated amount of data transmitted and/or received at the at least one gateway to the available bandwidth at the at least one gateway is at least 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, %, 95%, 98%, 99%, 99.5%, 99.9%, 99.99% or 99.999%. 100840] G.52 The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the available bandwidth is approximately equal to or at least 1/128, 1/64, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, or 1 of the total bandwidth.

[008411 G.53. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the available bandwidth is between 0.4% to 100%, 0.8% to 100%, 1.5% to 100%, 3.1% to 100%, 6% to 100%, 12% to 100%, 25% to 100%, 50% to 100%, 75% to 100%, 90% to 100%, 25% to 75%, 0.4% to 12%, 3,1% to 25% or 6% to 50% of the total bandwidth. 100842] G.54. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein each device or the substantial portion of individual devices extract information that is transmitted for use at the individual device by using one or more predefined offsets and/or one or more predefined amounts of data. 1008431 G.55. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the individual devices transmit and/or receive for a predefined period of time. 1008441 0.56. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least I nanosecond, 10 nanoseconds or 100 nanoseconds 1008451 G.57. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most1 nanosecond, 10 nanoseconds or 100 nanoseconds 1008461 G.58. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least 1 microsecond, 10 microseconds or 100 microseconds

[00847] G.59. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most I microsecond, 10 microseconds or 100 microseconds 1008481 0.60. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least 1I milisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds. (008491 G.61. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most I milisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds

[008501 G.62. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least I second, 10 seconds or 100 seconds

[008511 G.63. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at most Isecond, 10 seconds or 100 seconds 1008521 G.64. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the predefined period of time is at least I milisecond, 10 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds and an amount of data is variable.

[008531 G.65. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the time period is predefined and the amount of data isvariable.

[00854] G.66. The system of one or more of the examples, where the amount of data is substantially the same and/or variable.

[00855] G.67. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a resource is substantially the same and/or variable. 100856] G.68. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein one or more of the following: the predefined time for a substantial portion of the plurality of devices, the predefined amount of data for a substantial portion of the plurality of devices , the predefined resources for a substantial portion of the plurality of devices are determined by a central computer, a cloud computing resource and/or a plurality of computing devices. 1008571 0.69. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of computing devices are at least a portion of the plurality of devices

[00858] G.70. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of the computing devices are capable of communicating with at least one other computing device.

[00859] H.1 A system comprised of: a plurality of devices, wherein a portion of the plurality of devices are capable of transmitting data; at least one device of the plurality of devices is capable of receiving data; an individual device from the plurality of devices originates a payload and a signature of the payload; the at least one device of the plurality of devices is capable of determining the identity of a sender device based on a plurality of payloads originated by the portion of the plurality of devices and at least one signature.

[008601 H.2. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the at least one signature is one or more of the following: an aggregation of the signatures of the portion of the plurality of devices; a function of the signatures of the portion of the plurality of devices; an partial aggregation of the signatures of the portion of the plurality of devices; a partial function of the signatures of the portion of the plurality of devices; an aggregation of at least a portion of the signatures of the portion of the plurality of devices; and a function of at least a portion of the signatures of the portion of the plurality of devices.

[008611 H.3. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the function of the signatures results in a second signature, wherein the length of the second signature is less than the length of the aggregated signatures.

[00862] H.4. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the function of the signatures, Length(F({s ,s 21,s 3,.,s})) < E Length(s), wherein F is a function of the signatures, s are individual signatures, n is the number of signatures contributing to the function of signatures.

[00863] H.5. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of payloads from at least a second portion of the plurality of devices is aggregated and signatures on the payloads from at least a second portion of the plurality of devices are not aggregated.

[008641 14.6. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of payloads from at least a second portion of the plurality of devices may be aggregated and signatures on the payloads from at least a second portion of the plurality of devices may not be aggregated.

[00865) H.7. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the plurality of payloads from at least a second portion of the plurality of devices is at least partially aggregated and at least a portion of signatures on the payloads from at least a second portion of the plurality of devices are not aggregated. 100866] H.8. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein signatures on the payloads from at least a portion of the substantial portion of the plurality of devices are not aggregated by XORing signatures from the individual devices. 1008671 H.9. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein a substantial portion of signatures is calculated using a payload, a substantially unique key and a substantially random value. 1008681 H.10. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantially random value is not transmitted.

[008691 H.11. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of signatures is calculated using a block cypher.

[008701 H.12. The system of one or more of the examples, wherein the substantial portion of signatures is calculated using a hash function.

[00871 Additionally, the disclosure has been described with reference to particular embodiments, However, it will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art that it is possible to embody the disclosure in specific forms other than those of the embodiments described above. The embodiments are merely illustrative and should not be considered restrictive. The scope of the disclosure is given by the appended claims, rather than the preceding description, and all variations and equivalents that fall within the range of the claims are intended to be embraced therein. 1008721 It is to be understood that, if any prior art publication is referred to herein, such reference does not constitute an admission that the publication forms a part of the common general knowledge in the art, in Australia or any other country. 1008731 In the claims which follow and in the preceding description of the invention, except where the context requires otherwise due to express language or necessary implication, the word "comprise" or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising" is used in an inclusive sense, i.e. to specify the presence of the stated features but not to preclude the presence or addition of further features in various embodiments of the invention.

[00874] This application is a divisional application from Australian application 2019204431 The full disclosure of AU2019204431 is incorporated herein by

reference.

Claims (20)

1. CLAIMS 1. A network system comprising: a plurality of devices, a substantial portion ofthe plurality of devices each being capable of: transmitting a first data andreceiving a second data; and communicating with at least one other of the plurality of devices; and a gateway capable of transmitting the second data to a first device of the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, receiving the first data from the first device and/or from a second device of the substantial portion of the plurality of devices, transmitting one or more of the first data, the second data, and a third data to at least one electronic computing device, and receiving one or more of the first data, the second data, the third data, and a fourth data from the at least one electronic computing device, the gateway implemented in a minimum infrastructure that enables the gateway to handle the plurality of devices, wherein the minimum infrastructure enables the gateway to handle between 100 and 1,000,000 of the plurality of devices while remaining substantially the same; wherein one or both of the first device and the second device are positioned within a first distance from the gateway that allows communication with the gateway; wherein a second distance between the first device and the second device allows communication between the first device and the second device; wherein the plurality of devices are feedback devices configured to collect preference feedback from a user; wherein the plurality of devices are capable of transmitting data and receiving data; and wherein at least one of the plurality of devices is configured to receive a plurality of feedback entries and reject at least one repetitive feedback entry within a predefined time window without further intervention by the user.
2. 2. The network system of claim 1, wherein the cost of deploying and maintaining the network system of at least 100, 500, 2000, 10,000, 100,000, 500,000, 1,000,000, or 5,000,000 of the plurality of devices is substantially proportional to the cost of each individual device of the plurality of devices.
3. 3. The network system of claim 1, wherein between 100 and 1,000,000 of the plurality of devices are wireless devices.
4. 4. The network system of claim 3, wherein the plurality of devices, the gateway, and the at least one computing device form a network using the minimum infrastructure and no additional infrastructure.
5. 5. The network system of claim 1, wherein a ratio of available bandwidth to net pay load of a substantial portion of the network system is between 50 to 200, 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200,000, 200 to 2 million, 2 million to 1 billion, or one billion to 100 billion.
6. 6. The network system of claim 1, wherein a ratio of available channel capacity to net pay load of a substantial portion of the network system is between 50 to 200, 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200,000, 200 to 2 million, 2 million to 1 billion, or one billion to 100 billion.
7. 7. The network system of claim 1, wherein a ratio of a total data transmission to a net overhead of a substantial portion of the network system is between 50 to 200, 200 to 1000, 300 to 5000, 200 to 200,000, 200 to 2 million, 2 million to 1 billion, or one billion to 100 billion.
8. 8. The network system of claim 1, wherein a ratio of channel capacity to net pay load is between 200 to 250,000, 300 to 5000, 1000 to 100,000, 50,000 to 1 million or 500,000 to 10 million.
9. 9. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein the network system is a low-bandwidth application.
10. 10. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein at least 85%, 90%, %, 98%, 99%, 99.5%, 99.8% of the plurality devices are capable of interacting with at least one neighbouring device.
11. 11. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein a ratio of transmit plus receive time to idle time is between 100 to 300,000, 100 to 500, 200 to 1000, 500 to 2000,

    1000 to 10,000, 1000 to 5000, 10,000 to 50,000, 40,000 to 120,000, 50,000 to 140,000, 80,000 to 200,000, 120,000 to 300,000 or 160,000 to 350,000.
12. 12. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein additional devices of the plurality of devices are added without the need to reconfigure complex and/or powerful central transmitters and/or receivers.
13. 13. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein MAC layer overhead is 0%, less than 1%, less than 5%, or less than 10%.
14. 14. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein the network system is preconfigured by creating one or more of the following: optimized routes and optimized resources.
15. 15. The network system of claim 14, wherein a first optimized resource of the optimized resources is one or more of the following: a channel, a time slot, a CDMA sequence, a frequency hopping sequence, and an FDD bin.
16. 16. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein transmission overhead is reduced by suppressing one or more of the following: source headers, destination headers and request-channel allocation-transmission overhead.
17. 17. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein the plurality of devices are one or more of the following: current sensors, light sensors, humidity sensors, pressure sensors, gas sensors, chemicals sensors, proximity sensors, movement sensors, magnetic sensors, radiation sensors, cameras, scanners, sprinkles, heater controllers, pump controllers, air con controllers, and water supply controllers.
18. 18. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein the plurality of devices perform one or more of the following functions: measure a value, control another of the plurality of devices, monitor a parameter, and accept and execute control commands.
19. 19. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein a packet exchange and a routing are done with zero overhead or substantially no overhead and no addresses are required.
20. 20. The network system of one or more of the preceding claims, wherein the net overhead per device is less than 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1%, or 0.01 %.