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Overview
This paper focuses on wireless mesh infrastructure systems used for creating large Wi-Fi access networks, and examines three different approaches currently available for implementing them. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of each approach with a particular focus on the capacity that is available to users. Can wireless mesh infrastructure systems deliver enough capacity to support broadband services for a large number of users?
Mesh is a type of network architecture. Originally, Ethernet was a shared bus topology in which every node tapped into a common cable that carried all transmissions from all nodes. In bus networks, any node on the network hears all transmissions from every other node in the network. Most local area networks (LANs) today use a star topology in which every network node is connected to a switch (switches can be interconnected to form larger networks).
Mesh networks are different full physical layer connectivity is not required.As long as a node is connected to at least one other node in a mesh network, it will have full connectivity to the entire network because each mesh node forwards packets to other nodes in the network as required. Mesh protocols automatically determine the best route through the network and can dynamically reconfigure the network if a link becomes unusable.
There are many different types of mesh networks. Mesh networks can be wired or wireless. For wireless networks there are ad-hoc mobile mesh networks and permanent infrastructure mesh networks. There are single radio mesh networks, dual-radio mesh networks and multi-radio mesh networks. All of these approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. They can be targeted at different applications and used to address different stages in the evolution and growth of the network.
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The 1/N equation we used earlier predicts that per-AP capacity will be 1.67 Mbps when N=3. However, when we factor in the effects of contention and interference when the wired connection is in the middle of a string of 5 APs (Figure 3 with the wired connection at AP3), the estimated capacity is .58 Mbps.This matches the (1/2)N prediction of .56 Mbps when N = 5. The string of mesh APs that we have described so far is not a typical mesh configuration.The cluster of mesh APs shown in Figure 5 is a more common example of a small mesh network.
Figure 5: Single-radio Mesh Cluster
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The most likely shared backhaul network protocol is 802.11a, which has a raw date rate of 54 Mbps and useful throughput of approximately 20 Mbps in this type of network. Capacity is limited because of the behavior of the shared network used for the backhaul. Contention and interference vary depending on the placement of the APs. All of the APs must operate on the same channel for the wireless backhaul and they must be able to hear at least one other AP in order to be part of the mesh. Typically, each AP will be able to hear at least two or three other APs.Those with more adjacent neighbors will have more contention and generate more interference than isolated mesh APs at the edge of the network. It is difficult to predict the system capacity without making assumptions about AP placement. Figure 7 compares the capacity for the minimal overlap string of mesh APs shown in Figure 6.The backhaul network offers 20 Mbps of capacity, so per-AP capacity is good for a few nodes. After three or four nodes, the per-AP capacity drops off because of the shared network effects. In a more typical mesh cluster with more overlap between mesh APs, useful access capacity could be worse than shown here.
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Dual-radio systems are a big improvement over single-radio mesh designs and represent a logical evolution in the growth of a mesh network. However, dual-radio systems alone dont scale to metro dimensions and the high and unpredictable latency on the shared backhaul network makes them a poor candidate for voice over Wi-Fi.
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When used for backhaul in this fashion, the performance of a multi-radio mesh is similar to switched, wired connections.The mesh radios operate independently on different channels so latency is very low.There are only two nodes per mesh link, so contention is very low. In fact, it is possible to run a customized point to point protocol that optimizes throughput in this simple two-node contention-free environment.These dedicated point to point links are usually in the unlicensed 5.8 GHz band and based on 802.11a chipsets today. In the near future this will be a good application for 802.16d WiMAX.These pre-WiMAX wireless links have a potential throughput of approximately 25 Mbps. Performance in a multi-radio mesh is much better than the dual-radio or single-radio mesh approaches. The mesh delivers more capacity and continues to scale as the size of the network is increasedas more nodes are added to the system, overall system capacity grows. Figure 9 shows the capacity per-AP for the multi-radio configuration shown in Figure 8.We assume a channel capacity of 23 Mbps for each of the point-to-point wireless backhaul links. In this string of APs, without the direct link between AP1 and AP5, total system capacity is limited to a single channel of the backhaul link because there is only one backhaul link connecting the node to the wired network.This delivers maximum per-AP capacity for up to five mesh APs and then declines with each additional AP.
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Adding the wireless link between AP1 and AP5 doubles system capacity and delivers maximum per-AP capacity through 10 APs, as shown. So the bottleneck in a multi-radio architecture is not in the wireless mesh. System capacity in this architecture is limited by the wired backhaul. System capacity will increase and per-AP capacity will remain stable as more mesh APs are added to the networkas long as there is enough wired backhaul support. Capacity increases beyond those shown in Figure 9 are possible if there are multiple wired network egress points supplying the mesh. A more typical multi-radio mesh configuration is shown in Figure 10. In this design there are multiple paths through the network, and a mesh protocol would eliminate the forwarding loops and minimize the number of hops to the wired backhaul. Larger networks would typically have additional wired egress points to increase capacity and offer more redundancy in the system.
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The estimated capacity of multi-radio mesh is compared to single-radio and dual-radio designs in Figure 11.This chart shows the capacity of the different approaches when deployed in a linear fashion around a wired connection in the middle.
Figure 11 Multi Radio Mesh Per AP Capacity
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Co-existenceMost large wireless meshes today are designed to support Wi-Fi clients in the 2.4 GHz band.There are many other Wi-Fi devices out there. It is important for large infrastructure to fit into the RF environment. A single-radio mesh must use the same channel throughout the system. (Similarly, the backhaul mesh in a dual-radio system uses the same 5 GHz channel for the whole system.) It is unlikely that this channel will be the best at each location in a large network. A multi-radio mesh is much more flexible. Each access radio can be assigned a different channel, so the co-existence problem is isolated to the coverage area of a single mesh APnot the whole system. Multi-radio meshes fit into their environment and share the unlicensed spectrum better.
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InterferenceMulti-radio meshes are very flexible in terms of channel assignment on the access or backhaul radios.They can adapt to interference because each access radio can be set to the channel that is least used in a given area.The backhaul network consists of point-to-point links.They use directional antennas that have high gain, but they project their signals in a narrow pattern in a specific direction.This minimizes the impact of the multi-radio backhaul mesh on other systems in the area. Multi-radio meshes have very little self interference because of flexible channel assignment and multiple radios operating on different channels at the same time. Both dual-radio and single-radio meshes cause self-interference, since all the nodes in the mesh must share a common channel for backhaul. In addition, interference from external networks in one location will disrupt service across and entire dual- or single-radio mesh network. LatencyThe dedicated point-to-point links in the multi-radio mesh keep backhaul latency low and predictable. Single-radio mesh and dual-radio mesh approaches have a shared backhaul network using a contention based protocol with unpredictable latency. Multi-radio mesh is suitable for voice applications, the others are not.
Conclusion
Capacity in a wireless mesh infrastructure is affected by the mesh forwarding performance, shared network contention and self interference of the mesh APs. It is important to consider all of these issues when analyzing these systems. Single radio wireless mesh, representing the lowest cost entry point in the deployment of a mesh network, is low capacity and will not effectively scale to implement a complete large network. Single radio mesh is best used in small mesh clusters at the edge of a network. The dual-radio mesh architecture represents the logical evolution in the growth of a mesh network. Dual-radio systems alone dont scale to metro dimensions. Multi-radio mesh systems separate wireless access and backhaul, and use dedicated point-to-point links to form the wireless backhaul mesh. This eliminates both in-channel mesh forwarding and shared backhaul network contention overhead. The result is a high capacity system that can scale to support large networks with broadband service for many users. In the real world, large wireless networks require an integrated combination of the three mesh approaches described. It is possible to deploy a very low cost, low capacity network based mostly on single-radio mesh with some multi-radio mesh nodes acting as aggregators for single radio mesh clusters. Over time, the network can be upgraded with more capacity or better QoS by replacing single-radio mesh nodes at the edge with multi-radio nodes. Network design should be customized to meet the application requirements and budget by using the appropriate mix of the different wireless mesh approaches.
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