AP MATRIX: A new access point architecture for reliable public Wi-Fi services

Abstract

Public Wi-Fi hotspots are everywhere: in libraries, airports, shopping centers, etc. Public Wi-Fi services allow people to access Internet conveniently and freely, but today's unorganized deployments of wireless access points (APs) make the services unmanageable, unreliable, inefficient, unscalable, and high-cost. Besides, advanced network functionalities such as transparent migrations of TCP/IP sessions are often preferred for offering high-quality network services like remote desktop application in mobile environment. In this paper, we present AP MATRIX, a novel architecture for AP deployments, aiming at providing controllable, reliable, seamless, scalable, and low-cost Wi-Fi services in public places. The AP MATRIX architecture consists of three layers: slave AP, master AP and central controller. A prototype of AP MATRIX has been deployed at a university building and providing public Wi-Fi services with functions including network admission control, seamless handover, high reliability, load balancing and dynamic scalability.