NSF-CRI'07 Breakout Session
June 4, 2007
Urban Mesh Networks: Does Your
City Mayor Want One?
Abstract
Over 200 cities already have
them. Over 1,000 cities are expected to have them in the next 3-4 years.
This breakout session will discuss the role of urban mesh networks from
creating “communities” to providing city services to closing the digital
divide. Early deployments, like in the city of Houston, faced practical
challenges related to their design and the performance of existing
protocols. Is this an opportunity for a better “clean-slate” design of
urban networks? An urban network infrastructure seems like a fertile
ground, not only for education, but also for research and innovations.
But then, users grow to rely on the infrastructure and may not tolerate
disruptions from implementing research ideas.
This breakout session will
discuss the tussle between providing stable public services and enabling
innovations, the value of an open platform for research in urban
networking and the tussle with commercial players, and the role that
funding agencies—such as NSF—may play in supporting development and
research of urban networks.
Session Leader and Moderator: Ibrahim Matta, CS Department,
Boston University |