A case study in designing an autonomic wireless mesh network

Out-of-the-box meshing is the lead scenario for wireless mesh networks: End users should be able to join a mesh without any configuration hassle, they shouldbe able to extend the mesh by simply adding more mesh routers without further configuration, and they should be able to instantly use network community services tonetwork themselves in a spontaneous way. We have integrated MANET style routing with a dynamic naming scheme and complete self-configuration, resulting in the BaselMesh system that runs on Linksys wireless routers. In this paper we report on the properties of the BaselMesh system, the offered functionality, and the obstacles that had to be overcome to make it an "autonomic" mesh.