Blockchain for Economically Sustainable Wireless Mesh Networks
This addresses the problem of decentralized, low-cost Internet access for communities by enabling transparent investment and compensation in mesh networks, though it is incremental as it builds on existing blockchain and mesh technologies.
The paper tackles the challenge of creating economically sustainable wireless mesh networks by integrating blockchain for transparent economic coordination, evaluating Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum geth with Proof of Authority in real and lab settings to quantify performance and identify limitations.
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, while 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 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 also in laboratory network. We quantify the performance, 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.