A cost analysis of Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract

A Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) is composed of multiple Mesh Nodes that are connected together using the radio channel and rely on the backhaul capacity available at a limited number of Gateway Nodes. In this paper, we address the problem of assessing the generic cost of a WMN and comparing it with the cost of other supported network solutions, e.g. a cellular network. We restrict our analysis to regular topologies and make simplifying assumptions about the cost breakdown, without introducing however any bias in favour of multi-hop solutions. For any choice of the parameters, our model determines the feasible network design solutions, that satisfy the traffic demands of all Mesh Nodes thanks to optimal scheduling, and the solution having the minimum cost among all these ones. Our cost analysis takes in account the problem of interference and implies an efficient use of the available resources through spatial reuse.