ULOOP · User-centric Wireless Local-Loop

The flexibility inherent to wireless technologies is giving rise to new types of access networks and allowing the Internet to expand in a user-centric way. This is particularly relevant if one considers that wireless technologies such as Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) currently complement Internet access broadband technologies, forming the last hop to the end-userr. This fact becomes even more significant due to the dense deployment of Wi-FI Access Points that is common today in urban environments.Due to such density, a relevant aspect that can be worked upon is leveraging such wireless local-loop" by developing networking mechanisms that allow adequate resource management and a future Internet architecture to scale in an autonomic way. Such wireless local-loop could then reach rates closer to the ones provided by current access technologies.<br/>A way to overcome the limitation of today's broadband access technologies is to expand the backbone infrastructure reach by means of low-cost wireless technologies that embody a multi-operator model, i.e., a local-loop based upon what a specific community of individuals (end-users) is willing to share, backed up by specific cooperation incentives and "good behaviour" rules.<br/>The purpose of this project is therefore to explore the potential of having a wireless local-loop based upon a user-centric (community) model extending the reach of a high debit, multi-access broadband backbone from different perspectives (technical and business models, as well as the expected telecommunications market and legislation impact). Our expectations are to show that such model can be beneficial both from an end-user and from an access provider perspective, given that it allows expanding high debit reach in a seamless, cooperative, and low-cost manner, enabling the operators to focus on service rather than on pipes."