The effect of consumer demand on optimised wireless mesh network deployment

Infrastructure wireless mesh networks are a promising technology for cost-effective broadband provision which utilise consumer access points to relay data through the network, hence requiring little fixed infrastructure. Because of this, during the initial network rollout, relatively low investment in infrastructure has the potential to give good levels of coverage within the network area. However, to achieve the necessary levels of coverage for a financially viable network, they require a sufficiently high take up among the potential subscribers in the network area. Previous work has shown how optimisation algorithms can be utilised to assign individual subscription prices to potential subscribers in order to maximise the coverage and revenue achieved, while reducing the need for dedicated seed nodes. In this paper we use these techniques to investigate in detail the effect of the relationship between consumer demand and subscription price on the design of optimised mesh networks.