Non-Cooperative Coexistence of Co-located Independent W'ireless Mesh Networks*

Abstract network by using the IEEE 802. 1i s standard. Despite the advances made in WMNs, several key tech-As more wireless networks are being deployed in a given nical challenges still remain. One such challenge relates to geographic area, the problem of interference and coexis- the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. This creates tence ofthese independently operated networks is becoming the potential of interference among communicating nodes an increasing problem. This paper looks at the coexistence that reside within the same locality, known as a collision ofindependent multihop Wireless Mesh Networks (WM7s). domain [8]. Briefly, if more than a pair of communicating We argue that cooperation is dfficult in such scenarios. We nodes are present in a collision domain, coordination is define a coexistence game model and apply it to study chan- required to prevent both links from being active at the same nel assignment in co-located WMNs. Jn addition, we pro- time. Otherwise, packet collisions occur. pose using no-regret learning algorithms that allow WMNs In this paper, we postulate that with the increasingly to iteratively arrive at Nash Equilibrium outcomes. Simula- widespread deployment of WMNs, the interference among tion results show that the informed no-regret learning algo- WMNs under different management control is bound to rithms we have tested converge to a set ofNash Equilibrium become a critical problem. This inter-network interference strategy profiles. We also show that network information is is different from the interference found among nodes fro