A hybrid anycast routing protocol for load balancing in heterogeneous access networks

The wireless multihop to an access point model appears to be a promising component of future network architectures, including multihop cellular networks and wireless access networks at the edges of mesh networks. Sophisticated software radios and core network protocols are being developed to support the integration of heterogeneous access networks. A challenge is managing diverse resources at access points (e.g., 3G, WiFi or WiMax), as well as the distributed interference among the mobiles within a heterogeneous access network. We propose the use of a new anycasting protocol to guide access point discovery and path selection for balancing access point resource and routing packets to access points (APs). In addition, a hybrid proactive/reactive approach is used to reduce overhead of AP discovery. We use theoretical analysis and extensive simulations, to study the tradeoff of our hybrid anycasting protocol. The simulation study indicates that the use of the hybrid anycasting protocol for AP discovery, load balancing and routing, results in consistent performance improvements.