Towards Carrier Grade Wireless Mesh Networks for Broadband Access1

Abstract — Broadband wireless access networks have the potential to fulfil the vision of high-speed ubiquitous Internet access. Due to the unreliability and heterogeneity of the network, operators are particularly challenged to provide ”Carrier Grade” services that ensure a secure, efficient and reliable access to users. This paper provides an overview of these challenges and presents a network architecture and overarching services that form a unified and reliable carrier grade wireless access network. Particular focus of the paper is on wireless mesh multihop networks as they are a viable solution to realise broadband wireless access flexibly and cost efficiently. Moreover, we describe a next-generation wireless access network testbed where the architecture and services will be deployed and provide initial simulation and measurement results. I