Performance Issues in a Low Cost Multi-Channel Multi-Interface Wireless Mesh Network

In urban environments, several studies have shown that a mesh network is able to complement a number of existing access technologies, including wired broadband networks, 3G, 4G and commercial WiFi hotspots. However, due to the limited number of orthogonal channels available in the radio spectrum (3 in IEEE 802.11b / g / n in 2.4 GHz band), interference and containment bring new challenges to provide high performance in these networks. In this context, multi-channel multi-interface wireless mesh networks emerge as an efficient strategy of spreading the load through orthogonal channels to improve the network capacity. In this paper, we investigate different strategies for the use of multiple channels and multiple heterogeneous and homogeneous interfaces in a community area as a real university mesh network. Experimental results show that the use of multiple interfaces and multiple channels does not always increase the performance of the network in a real scenario.