Minimum cost configuration of relay and channel infrastructure in heterogeneous wireless mesh networks

Abstract

Fixed broadband wireless access is a promising technology allowing Internet service providers to expend their customer base in sparsely populated rural areas. Because the size of the target service area is humongous, relay infrastructure is essential. Installing and maintaining this relay infrastructure is the main cost associated with such networks. Thus, we develop an optimization framework which computes the minimum number of relay stations and their corresponding channel configurations such that a pre-specified subscribers' traffic demand can be satisfied. Since the problem is a mixed-integer program, we propose an efficient optimization algorithm to compute the optimal solution in a reasonable amount of time. Our numerical results show that by using a few relay stations in a rural community, broadband Internet access can be established in a cost effective manner. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2007.