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submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

No internet required... In this video, I build a public Reticulum node and test whether it can bridge completely different networks into one encrypted communication path. I send messages from a normal phone over LTE, through the internet and Starlink, then off-grid over LoRa—eventually using a $20 drone-mounted relay to reach a phone with no internet connection at all.

repo: https://github.com/markqvist/reticulum

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[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 14 points 4 days ago

Reticulum is a great project, but it's not a replacement for the internet. LoRA (a potential piece in that chain) has very low data throughput; it's fine for messages, but you're not delivering web pages or streaming media with it.

Unless and until the throughput can be increased, Meshtastic/Meshcore is really only a replacement for text messaging, which might be perfectly fine for setting up encrypted comms or rapidly deploying communications in an emergency scenario.

[-] sculptor0725@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago

That was the thing that made me think reticulum was worth pursuing actually. It does work over a lot of stuff besides lora. You can mesh WiFi routers or other protocols. The issue is bandwidth ota since so much is dedicated to commercial stuff, but you can route reticulum over that including through i2p for anonymity. Meshtastic very much focuses on lora only, reticulum does not.

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 4 days ago

Yep, I agree with all of that. The original source here is specifically using LoRA, which is why I focused upon it, but Reticulum is certainly more than that.

[-] azimir@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago

Exactly the problem: bandwidth and latency.

The radio frequencies these run at and the power they're allowed to use limits them to very very low bandwidth for data transfer. They can't even do a low bitrate audio stream.

What they can do is messaging without 3rd party oversight and with adhoc data links. They're very very cool for offline networks, especially in places without extant infrastructure for transmissions.

this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
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