Innovations to improve wireless mesh network performance: A survey

The close correlation between the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country and the availability of the broadband services has intensified the growth of the broadband access in all the continents in the world. This has put further pressure on the frequency spectrum available to support the rising demand. Optical fiber broadband technology which has the capacity to carry high volume of traffic at extremely high speed is the obvious choice to fulfill the demand. However its implementation cost and time have inhibited the widespread installation especially at the front end of the broadband access network. Wireless mesh network with its relatively short set up time and comparatively lower cost has been identified as a suitable technology to support the fiber backbone in providing front end connections to the mobile clients. The number of clients that can be served by the wireless segment of this hybrid communication system is inundated by spectrum limitation, unpredictable weather conditions, radio interferences and transmission power regulated by the authority. Many innovations have been used to extend the limited resources so as to maximise the number of mobile clients that can be supported by the wireless mesh network. This paper surveys the innovations with respect to radio channel, network topology, routing strategy and channel assignment that have been proposed to improve the performance of the wireless mesh network and suggest some areas for further work.