Deploying applications with Community-Lab in wireless community networks

Abstract

Community-Lab is a testbed for researchers to carry out experiments within wireless community networks. Community networks are an emergent model of infrastructures built with off-the-shelf communication equipment that aims to satisfy a community's demand for Internet access and ICT services. Community-Lab consists of a set of nodes that are integrated in existing community networks, thus giving researchers access to community networks and allowing them to conduct experimental evaluation of applications deployed there. ICT services and applications beyond Internet access are an important milestone - yet not completely reached - to add value to community networks. The challenging environment of community networks however needs a careful evaluation of application performance to make the user experience successful. This paper focuses on demonstrating the deployment of applications in Community-Lab. By means of selected applications, we show how Community-Lab can be used by researchers to perform experiments with applications in community networks.