Should next generation wireless mesh networks consider dynamic channel access?

The increasing demand for large and low cost wireless coverage, ranging from campus to city wide areas, has motivated a high interest in multi-hop communications with IEEE 802.11s as the most significant and successful standard for wireless mesh networks. Although IEEE 802.11s introduces new interworking, routing and wireless frame forwarding at the link layer, the multi channel architecture receives less attention. In this paper we provide insights into the IEEE 802.11s standard and explain some channel assignment (CA) protocols which can be considered for wireless mesh networks to improve their performance by limiting the negative interference effects.