A load-distributive QoS routing protocol for multi-service wireless mesh networks

This paper proposes a novel routing protocol for multi-service wireless mesh networks (WMNs). Our protocol provisions quality of service (QoS) using bandwidth reservation and bandwidth splitting mechanisms in the network layer and enhanced distributed contention access mechanism in the MAC layer. A performance analysis is conducted and the results show that the proposed resource management mechanism enables high-priority traffics to better access network resources and achieve lower delays. Low-priority traffics, on the other hand, may be routed through higher number of hops and may experience more delays or lower bandwidth resources. The proposed bandwidth offer mechanism results in an efficient traffic load distribution in the network and eliminates bottle-neck situations. The results also show the interaction between the MAC and routing protocols in terms of joint QoS provisioning.