Wireless LANs: From WarChalking to Open Access Networks

This work discusses the evolution of W-LANs from their current status of wireless termination of LAN services to a possible global infrastructure where the access networks become open to multiple operators and a vehicle of a win-win scenario, where both users and operators benefit from the new network architecture. The idea of Open Access Networks (OANs) can go beyond wireless HotSpots and be generalized to a generic shared access infrastructure that fosters service operators competition and drastically reduces the cost of last mile coverage.The general concept of Open Access Networks is detailed, highlighting its difference with the more traditional model of vertical integration of the access network into the global service. About the OANs development, it is shown how to support the quick and smooth evolution of the infrastructure toward a widespread and reliable communication support.Business models are discussed by mentioning the different actors, the market organization and the different organization forms.The final part of the paper is devoted to technical challenges such as access control, security, privacy, roaming, resource exploitation and service differentiation. As an example of how to tackle these problems, we discuss a pricing technique devoted to resource management and billing support.In addition we present a simulation on how the OAN concept can speed-up the deployment of broadband access in a real case.A preliminary version of this paper with the title “Global Growth of Open Access Networks: from WarChalking and Connection Sharing to Sustainable Business” was presented at WMASH 2003.Roberto Battiti received the Laurea degree from the University of Trento, Italy, in 1985 and the Ph.D. degree from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA, in 1990. He has been a consultant in the area of parallel computing and pattern recognition and since 1991 he has been a faculty member at the University of Trento, where he is now full professor of Computer Networks. His main research interests are heuristic algorithms for optimization problems, in particular reactive search algorithms for maximum clique, maximum satisfiability, graph coloring, networks and massively parallel architectures, code assignment in wireless and cellular networks, protocols for pricing and Quality of Service in wireless networks.Prof. R. Battiti is currently Dean of the international Graduate School in Information and Communication Technologies at Trento, Deputy Dean at the Faculty of Science, member of the advisory committee for the future Telecommunications Plan of the Autonomous Province of Trento. Prof. R. Battiti is associate editor of various scientific journals. He is the author of more than fifty scientific publications, including special issues dedicated to experimental algorithmics and wireless on-demand networks.R. Battiti is a member of IEEE Computer Society and ACM Sigmobile.Renato Lo Cigno is Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Telecommunications (DIT) of the University of Trento, Italy. He received a Dr. Ing. degree in Electronic Engineering from Politecnico di Torino in 1988. From 1989 to 2002 has been with the Telecommunication Research Group of the Electronics Department of Politecnico di Torino.From June 1998 to February 1999, he was at the CS Department at UCLA as Visiting Scholar under grant CNR 203.15.8. He is coauthor of more than 90 journal and conference papers in the area of communication networks and systems. His curent research interests are in performance evaluation of wired and wireless networks, modeling and simulation techniques, flow and congestion control, as well as network management and architecture. Renato Lo Cigno is member of the IEEE Communication Society and ACM Sigcomm.Mikalai Sabel received his master degree in radio physics from Belorussian State University in 2002. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. at the international Graduate School of Information and Communication Technologies at University of Trento, Italy. His research interest include wireless LANs, pricing and incentive engineering, IEEE802.11 MAC protocol. His current research is focused on optimization algorithms that can provide stability and maximum global welfare in a non-cooperative environment where singles tries to maximize their own benefit function. Experimentation of such schemes to pricing techniques and micro-payments in TLC networks provides the application environment of the fundamental research.Fredrik Orava is associate professor at KTH, Stockholm, Sweden. He conducts research into scalable (in terms of cost, capacity, number of users and devices etc.) communication system architectures and technologies. He has a MSc in engineering physics from Uppsala University and a PhD in computer systems also from Uppsala University. He previously held positions as researcher at the Swedish Institute for Computer Science (SICS); senior lecturer and manager of the telecommunications systems laboratory at the department for teleinformatics, KTH; acting professor in telecomunication systems at KTH; director for the Swedish Centre for Internet Technologies; and vice president of Dynarc AB with world wide responsibility for product management. Dynarc AB develops, manufactures and sells IP routers for optical IP networks.Bjorn Pehrson is a professor of telecommunication systems at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, since 1992, where he has also served as a department chairman and vice dean. He had his PhD from Uppsala University 1975 where he also served as senior lecturer and established a research group in computer and communication technology. During the period 1985-1992 he participated in the establishment of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. Björn Pehrson research interests are currently focussed on open network topologies allowing different actors forming new value chains to build networks together based on different, sometimes very local business models. The results are applied in testbeds, especially in rural areas and in developing countries.This revised version was published online in August 2005 with a corrected cover date.