Internet Pooling: Routing for load distribution in access networks

A variety of Internet access technologies are used in private as well as commercial environments. Local access is often limited by technological advances, and at the same time wireless meshed network equipment has become very affordable. This work proposes a concept called Internet Pooling. Neighbouring sites can be connected using meshed network technology. Internet resources are shared between sites; forming an Internet access pool rather than a single access link. Such a method could be used in urban as well as rural areas. Internet pooling requires two mechanisms; a flow-based routing strategy that routes packets, belonging to the same flow on the same interface and a mechanism that allows the sharing of available resource information. This paper gives a basic overview of the general mechanism and discusses a number of mathematical models, helping to address the question of how many local resources can be shared without any negative impact on local performance and how often such load information would need to be updated. Appropriate performance measures for such a setup are also discussed.