SonosNet allows ZonePlayers and Handheld controllers, to communicate with other Sonos devices without being routed through a central switch point, eliminating centralized failure, and providing self-healing and self-organization.

Think of each ZonePlayer as having a circle around it that represents its wireless coverage area. As long as every ZonePlayer's circle is within reach of at least one other ZonePlayer's circle all of the devices will be able to communicate. The signal will simply hop from one device to the next until it reaches its destination.

Benefits of a Wireless Mesh Network and SonosNet:

• Ease and simplicity: A device that is pre-configured for wireless mesh and uses standard wireless protocols such as 802.11b/g, the setup is extremely simple. Since routes are configured dynamically, it is often enough to simply drop the box into the network.
• Network robustness: The character of mesh topology and ad-hoc routing promises greater stability in the face of changing conditions or failure at single nodes, which will quite likely be under rough and experimental conditions.
• Reliability: A mesh network is reliable and offers redundancy. If one node can no longer operate, all the rest can still communicate with each other, directly or through one or more intermediate nodes. Mesh networks work well when the nodes are located at scattered points that do not lie near a common line.
• Bridging: SonosNet has the capability of bridging with Ethernet networks. This enables two computers connected to ZonePlayers to share files and Internet connectivity wirelessly over SonosNet. This file sharing does not affect the quality of music playback.