Opportunistic Wardriving Through Neighborhood Public Utility Vehicles as an Alternative to Crowdsourcing and Dedicated Wardriving for Wireless Network Data Collection

Abstract

In the Philippines, efforts are being made to address inaccessibility of Internet access by 42% of the population. One such service installs Wi-Fi hotspots in public areas and government buildings. To make the service more effective, data on Wi-Fi access point deployment is vital. While there exist platforms for crowdsourced data submission such as WiGLE, and methods such as dedicated wardriving, these can be costly, infrequent, and can easily become outdated. Regular data collection on Wi-Fi access points is necessary for better accuracy. For regular, inexpensive, and frequent data gathering, opportunistic wardriving is proposed, in which neighborhood public utility vehicles, such as the tricycle, are utilized to serve as vehicles for gathering network data. Leveraging public utility vehicles is inexpensive, and ensures regularity of data gathering because of their usual trips. Comparing this method with crowdsourced data, it is found that opportunistic wardriving is able to find at least 60% of the access points in an area. Opportunistic wardriving also ensures wide coverage of an area, accessing 83% of the chosen location, Brgy. Teachers Village East, in forty trips. It is hoped that this study will aid in understanding an inexpensive method for gathering information on Wi-Fi deployment in various areas.