Abstract
Overview
This report addresses technological and marketing issues of wireless mesh
networks (WMN). Such networks allow building self-organized and self-healing
architectures where all nodes are equally involved in the transport of video,
voice and data, making decisions based on information received from neighbors.
The network responds on each failure, and because it has in-built redundancy,
re-routes traffic from a place of failure.
The report analyzes WMN structures, and deals with:
- Radio technologies utilized by WMN
- Routing protocols.
In discussion of radio technologies for WMN, we emphasize the importance of
three forward-looking wireless protocols: IEEE802.11n, ZigBee and Ultra
Wideband (UWB). Though the majority of WMNs, at the present time use slower
IEEE802.11b, g technologies, it is our perception that these three protocols
will be building blocks of WMN in the near future. Except ZigBee, these
technologies allow transmission with a rate of hundreds Mb/s and support
greater coverage. ZigBee-structured WMNs are already a today reality in spite
of a fact that their speed of transmission cannot exceed a couple of hundreds
Kb/s.
All discussed technologies have features that are useful in the WMN environment:
- Extremely low power consumption
- Inherent security features
- Low sensitivity to mutipath problems.
The report analyzes technological benefits and limitations of each radio
technology and standardization process as well as presents the marketing
analysis and forecast.
The report also addresses the standardization process for WMN, and discusses a
status of the IEEE802.11s standard. It shows that, so far, almost every
manufacturer of WMN nodes uses proprietary routing protocols, and this
situation slows WMN development. Some of the most popular routing protocols in
use by WMNs are discussed in the report.
WMN architectures found already many applications in the commercial market,
though initially they were the military prerogative.
Among the most popular applications, we addressed:
- Municipalities
- Public safety communications
- Industrial automation
- Consumers.
Note that WMNs are perfect choice for first responders. These networks can be
easily deployed in a very short period of time (for example, in the emergency
situations), and each node may be associated with a first responder, as per an
ad-hoc network scenario. More than that, due to the fact that some routing
protocols are agnostic to the radio protocols, interoperability between
different agencies communications can be achieved. Some technologies, such as
UWB, may be used for dual purposes being a building block not only for
communications devices, but for extremely precise radar as well.
The report provides market characteristics of WMN, and shows that the industry
already has created a strong basis for future WMN expansion. We envision that
in several years 802.11n and UWB will prevail in WMN applications required
high-speed transmission, and they will successfully compete with wired
technologies, such as Fast Ethernet. ZigBee and 802.11a, b, g will be left for
applications that do not require high speed transmission, such as, for
example, industrial automation, or home networks.
Target Audience
This report is important to a wide population of researches, technical and
sales staff involved in the developing of mesh networks services and products.
It is recommended for both service providers and vendors that are working
with related technologies. The report also helps to understand issues
associated with relationship between WMN and other technologies.
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