An evaluation of IEEE 802.11 community networks deployments

IEEE 802.11 appears as the most popular technology for wireless access because of its low cost and high data rates capacity. In the recent years a new communication paradigm emerged, called the Community Networking, which takes advantage of existing residential 802.11 access points and is based on sharing some part of the bandwidth to members of the community. We evaluate the 802.11 environment, the quality of link, and the potential of these community networks in the city of Rennes, France. We aim at determining if these networks are offering enough coverage area to be considered as an alternative to cellular networks.