A Design Framework For Interconnecting Wireless Community Networks

Connecting people to each other through computer networks provides massive potential for improvement in business, healthcare and other aspects of daily life. However, the current topology of the Internet has resulted in the creation of powerful intermediaries to Internet access and use. Across the world, wireless community networks have evolved as a way to sidestep these intermediaries and ensure local connectivity which is safe from political or economic manipulation. In furtherance of this ideal, this paper addresses the challenge of achieving interconnectivity between multiple wireless community networks from a novel perspective based on coordination theory. This paper presents a design framework that proposes the features of the communication protocols, routing algorithms and resource sharing schemes that will be necessary in enabling communication between wireless community networks. Based on the proposed framework, an exemplar routing algorithm and resource sharing mechanism is developed, simulated and evaluated in the OMNET++ discrete event simulator.