A network approach for communal access services

The residential networking market is evolving and new operating paradigms are emerging. The ubiquitous use of Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) networks is increasing the demands on SOHO routers. These economical network elements, however, are too simple to deal with the high demands of their users, especially in residential settings where P2P, video and VoIP traffic is becoming predominant. This paper presents a communal gateway - CommGate - that enables individuals in a building to share multiple communal Internet links and service facilities. The paper presents also some tests simulating several user communities with different number of customers characterized by different profiles (cf. Gold, Silver and Bronze) and generating different traffic loads. These tests illustrate the benefits of using the CommGate and the usefulness of the proposed communal architecture.