Performance Measurements of Multimedia Flows over a WiFi-based Mesh Network

Wireless mesh networks are currently becoming one of the most promising approaches to provide ubiquitous broadband Internet access. In order to successfully make their way as access architecture for the next-generation Internet, mesh networks need to provide mechanisms able to efficiently support emerging broadband multimedia services. In this work, we report some performance measurements obtained on an experimental WiFibased mesh testbed running at CREATE-NET premises. The tests aim at characterizing the suitability of current mesh networking solutions to support multimedia flows. The obtained performance is compared to those obtained by means of a conventional star-shaped topology based on the use of access points. The results show that mesh architectures are able to offer some advantages, in terms of fairness and lower packet loss rate, with respect to a standard access points based architecture.