ITR: Wireless Transit Access Points: Enabling a Scalable, Deployable, High Performance Wireless Internet

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

The PIs driving vision is to provide a high-performance, scalable and widely deployed wireless Internet that facilitates services ranging from radically new and unforeseen applications to true wireless "broadband" to residences and public spaces at rates of 10s of Mb/sec. Unfortunately, today's wireless networks such as cellular and WiFi hot-spots cannot achieve this vision due to problems encountered on multiple fronts: (1) excessive costs of the wired backhaul network, (2) poor performance scaling, and (3) excessive costs of spectral license fees. We will design an architecture that is based on Transit Access Points (TAPs), devices that form a wireless backbone mesh via high-performance directional-antenna wireless links operating in the unlicensed band. This multihop wireless mesh interconnects wireless TAPs with limited wired Internet entry points and with wireless multihopping mobile users. To achieve the objectives with this architecture, the PIs will use a combination of theory, algorithm and protocol design, simulation, and implementation and testbed experimentation to address the following fundamental research issues: (1) development of scalable distributed opportunistic scheduling and media access protocols, (2) development of coordinated multi-hop resource management algorithms, (3) analysis of system capacity that incorporates the critical effects of protocol overhead, and (4) deployment of a first-of-its-kind neighborhood testbed.