A peer-to-peer approach to wireless LAN roaming

Abstract

We make the case for a Global Confederation of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Wireless Local Area Networks. A P2P Wireless Network Confederation (P2PWNC) is a community of administrative domains that offer wireless Internet access to each other's registered users. The ubiquitous Internet access that the roaming users of these domains could enjoy compensates for their home domain's cost of providing access to visitors. Existing roaming schemes utilize central authorities or bilateral contracts to control access to resources. In contrast, a P2PWNC forms a pure P2P community in which participating domains are autonomous entities. Domains make independent decisions concerning the amount of bandwidth they contribute. As a result, similarly to existing P2P systems, a P2PWNC will suffer from "free-riding" if no incentive mechanisms exist to ensure that domains offer the amount of resources that is economically justified. Flexible rules on reciprocity can be set to delimit domain actions and encourage domains to provide in order to consume. In this paper, we present several aspects of the P2PWNC requirements and design. We outline several P2PWNC implementation issues relating to user privacy and the confederation's real-world deployment. We also describe the P2PWNC prototype that we developed.