WiFIX: A New Solution for 802.11-based Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract—Ubiquitous Internet access is becoming crucial for end-users due to the increasing number of services and appli-cations supported over the Internet. Extending the coverage of current Wi-Fi infrastructures installed in companies, universities, and cities, has been considered a solution to help in fulfilling this requirement, namely when it comes to wireless and nomadic Internet access. This paper describes and analyses a new and simple solution, called Wi-Fi network Infrastructure eXtension (WiFIX), aimed at extending current Wi-Fi infrastructures. WiFIX is based on standard IEEE 802.1D bridges and a single-message protocol that is able to self-organize the network, and it only requires software changes in IEEE 802.11 access points; no changes to IEEE 802.11 stations are needed. Overhead analysis and experimental results show both the higher efficiency of the solution compared to the IEEE 802.11s draft standard and its good performance as far as data throughput and delay are concerned. I