Neutral Access Network Implementation Based on Linux Policy Routing

Neutral access networks (NANs) have been proposed as a mean for overcoming the stagnation of broadband market by granting positive externality to access infrastructures, in order to trigger a virtuous circle among investors, network operators, users, and service providers. From a technical point of view, NANs prompt for the development of new solutions to design and implement a shared infrastructure which enables unregistered users to associate to the network, to take advantage of local services delivered within the access network, and to register seamlessly with the Internet service provider of choice to gain instantaneous access to the Internet. This paper presents a NAN implementation, based on Linux policy routing, which has been developed and tested within the wireless campus of the University of Urbino.