Community building over neighborhood Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract

The fourth generation (4G) networks provide a converged environment for technology and service provision. The user-centric vision next-generation 4G is neighborhood Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). The vision for the formation of WMNs reflects the trade-off between the immediate self-interest of the user, and user's need for social contacts. The use of WMNs provide attractive means in reducing costs, as well as offering added value services and free Internet access. It can also provide additional network capacity, enable the sharing of other resources, and offering services to mobile users applications. The deployment of WMN can be seen as an intermediate step towards more general ad-hoc, user-centric environments.