Commercial multihop networks

Wireless multihop networking has been typically considered for industrial, military, or sensing applications [1][2]. Nevertheless, it has not been explicitly considered thus far for large-scale commercial access networks. This is mainly due to the fact that existing multihop networking technologies do not readily scale up in terms of number of terminals. Instead, an alternative packet relaying scheme is proposed here; one which is characterized by being distributed, connectionless. In this paper, we build on this scheme to establish a framework for the deployment of multihop networks on commercial basis. Practical considerations related to the implementation of commercial multihop networks are presented in this paper. Moreover, the paper highlights some of the economic values as well as business motivations for service providers to adopt the commercial multihop access network model.