Blockchain for economically sustainable wireless mesh networks

Abstract

Decentralization, in the form of mesh networking and blockchain, two promising technologies, is coming to the telecommunications industry. Mesh networking allows wider low-cost Internet access with infrastructures built from routers contributed by diverse owners, whereas blockchain enables transparency and accountability for investments, revenue, or other forms of economic compensations from sharing of network traffic, content, and services. Crowdsourcing network coverage, combined with crowdfunding costs, can create economically sustainable yet decentralized Internet access. This means that every participant can invest in resources and pay or be paid for usage to recover the costs of network devices and maintenance. While mesh networks and mesh routing protocols enable self-organized networks that expand organically, cryptocurrencies and smart contracts enable the economic coordination among network providers and consumers. We explore and evaluate two existing blockchain software stacks, Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) and Ethereum geth with Proof of Authority (PoA) intended as a local lightweight distributed ledger, deployed in a real city-wide production mesh network and in laboratory network. We quantify the performance and bottlenecks and identify the current limitations and opportunities for improvement to serve locally the needs of wireless mesh networks, without the privacy and economic cost of relying on public blockchains. KEYWORDS blockchain, Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, mesh networks, performance evaluation INTRODUCTIONNetwork infrastructures are critical to provide local and global connectivity that enables access to information, social inclusion, and participation for everyone. Local connectivity largely relies on access networks. Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are a kind of access networks comprising of wireless nodes, namely wireless mesh routers, wireless mesh clients, and network gateways. A client (connected through WiFi or wired to a mesh router) can access the Internet across a WMN. 1 These are self-organized networks that can grow organically: new network links can expand the coverage of the network or increase the capacity when links get overused. The routing protocol runs in every router by measuring the performance and quality of links and coordinates distributed decisions about the best network paths periodically. As a result, once a routing protocol is adopted, the development and operation of the network only depends on pooling routers and links with local decisions, without any central planning or management.These decentralized networks are essential to develop community access networks, network infrastructure commons, built by citizens and organizations which pool their resources and coordinate their efforts, characterized by being open, free, and neutral. 2 These decentralized access networks have been identified as one way to connect the next billion people that are still without the Internet access. 3 Guifi.net* is an example of such a community effort, which is one of the biggest commun...

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