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WANT CITY LINK IN YOUR AREA?
Follow the Getting Started guide to build a node and bring your town or city onto the network.
Extending Meshtastic across towns and cities
Spanero City Link Mesh is an independent community infrastructure project built around Meshtastic, helping extend and connect local LoRa mesh coverage across towns and cities.
What is City Link?
City Link is not a new radio system or an alternative to Meshtastic. It uses standard Meshtastic-compatible equipment and the existing LoRa mesh network.
The idea is simple: keep local communication on LoRa wherever possible, while using a managed IP and MQTT backbone to connect areas that would otherwise be beyond practical radio range.
What we're building
- Meshtastic coverage and local LoRa connectivity
- Links between neighbouring towns and cities
- Telemetry, sensors and DIY electronics
- Mobile and portable Meshtastic nodes
- Long-distance RF experimentation
- Community-hosted gateways and infrastructure
How it works
Locally, Meshtastic nodes communicate over LoRa in the normal way. Selected City Link gateway sites then connect those local areas through the managed City Link MQTT and IP backbone.
Traffic can be filtered, de-duplicated and shaped as it moves between City Link areas while retaining useful information about where packets originated and how they travelled through the network.
The aim
The longer-term aim is to create a network where somebody in one City Link area can communicate with another area, while users within each location continue using ordinary Meshtastic over LoRa locally.
Benefits of City Link
- Preserves useful hop and origin information when packets are carried between connected City Link areas.
- Keeps local traffic on LoRa wherever possible rather than unnecessarily moving local communication onto the IP backbone.
- Connects towns and cities over distance without requiring every location to have a direct long-distance RF path.
- Still participates in the wider Meshtastic network — selected City Link gateways can also pass appropriate traffic to the public Meshtastic MQTT network rather than operating as an isolated private system.
- Managed traffic handling allows filtering, duplicate control and traffic shaping instead of simply forwarding every packet blindly.
- Provides better network visibility by recording where traffic entered the network, how it travelled and which gateways were involved.
- No proprietary City Link radio or application is required. Standard Meshtastic-compatible equipment can continue to be used.
Electronic project connectivity
City Link can also provide Meshtastic connectivity for electronic projects, sensors and microcontrollers wherever suitable LoRa coverage is available.
Small packets of data can be exchanged without needing a SIM card, cellular data allowance or recurring mobile-network subscription. This makes Meshtastic particularly useful for telemetry, sensor readings, status messages and other low-bandwidth applications.
A project only needs suitable LoRa coverage to communicate locally; City Link infrastructure can then help carry appropriate data between connected areas when required.