2nd International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques

Research Article

MetroSim: A Planning Tool for Metropolitan WiFi Networks

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2009.5663,
        author={Gilberto A. Urueta and Christopher Thraves and Marcin Solarski and Pablo Vidales},
        title={MetroSim: A Planning Tool for Metropolitan WiFi Networks},
        proceedings={2nd International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques},
        publisher={ICST},
        proceedings_a={SIMUTOOLS},
        year={2010},
        month={5},
        keywords={Software systems network planning wireless networks},
        doi={10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2009.5663}
    }
    
  • Gilberto A. Urueta
    Christopher Thraves
    Marcin Solarski
    Pablo Vidales
    Year: 2010
    MetroSim: A Planning Tool for Metropolitan WiFi Networks
    SIMUTOOLS
    ICST
    DOI: 10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2009.5663
Gilberto A. Urueta1,*, Christopher Thraves2,*, Marcin Solarski1,*, Pablo Vidales1,*
  • 1: Deutsche Telekom Labs, Berlin, Germany.
  • 2: LaBRI, Université Bordeaux I, Bordeaux, France.
*Contact email: gilberto.urueta@telekom.de, cbthraves@labri.fr, marcin.solarski@telekom.de, pablo.vidales@telekom.de

Abstract

Massive growth of home wireless networking revives the opportunity to achieve citywide ubiquitous wireless access by building a WiFi overlay based on the principle of broadband sharing. This kind of large-scale overlay network poses new challenges for wireless network planning. In this scenario, the number of possible locations to install public hotspots is larger, by order of magnitude, to those managed by existing WiFi planning tools. Moreover, dynamics due to a loose control on the WiFi hotspots (as routers are not 100% controlled by the operator, but by the router owner) means hard constraints on the flexibility of the deployment. This paper describes MetroSim: a novel planning tool to drive the deployment of metropolitan WiFi networks based on enabling safe and controlled broadband sharing. MetroSim considers the aforementioned challenges in its design and implementation, as it has been developed specially to help planning this type large-scale metropolitan WiFi overlay networks.