There is a variety of community networks out there. In this paper we try to shed a light on the community network landscape by presenting the results of a questionnaire filled in by different community network organisations around the world. We demonstrate the variety of infrastructure used and the different management approaches of the network within those communities. We also show the common challenges of the communities and provide pointers to tackle those challenges.
One of the major advantages of wireless communication over wired is the flexibility when creating links between nodes. But this comes at a price as influences from outside the mesh network can distort communication between the nodes and even the nodes themselves interfere with each other. By carefully selecting channels where each link transmits data on, the interference can be minimized causing the throughput and end-to-end delay to be improved. We propose an algorithm that only uses locally distributed information to find the best channel selection for each link. The algorithm is independent of the used routing algorithm and scales well. Using simulations we will demonstrate scalability, convergence and finding an optimal solution.
Community networks are self-organized networks which exist all around the world. For a large number of users, they are the only form of communication in the community itself and with the Internet. All community networks maintain some database where all information about the nodes in the community network is stored. The database information is manually inserted in the database, which commonly leads to a mismatch between the documentation and reality. In this paper we present a dynamic community network mapper, complementary to the node database. We explain the goals of this approach, show the challenges and steps we took to realize such a mapper, and give initial results.
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