Revisiting WiFi offloading in the wild for V2I applications

Abstract

This paper revisits the opportunities of using WiFi offloading for Vehicle to Internet (V2I) communication, and how this has changed over the last decade. With the rollouts of provider-managed WiFi networks that are more structured and operate under authenticated regimes, WiFi offloading, or use of available (roadside) WiFi networks for V2I data communication, has different opportunities and challenges. To study the current landscape,we develop a system (X-Fi), which efficiently selects, associates to, authenticates with, and performs WiFi offloading for V2I communication with these networks, and a tool (X-Perf ), which illustrates opportunities of WiFi offloading available today in these networks, with measurements and experiments across four metro areas across three continents over 22 months. Our results indicate the feasibility of achieving 1 GB/hour application goodput, an order of magnitude higher than the number provided by open WiFi networks in the past, which can take a significant load away from alternative communication paths for V2I systems. Moreover, we provide several implications on transport protocols and WiFi deployments to shed light on the use of such WiFi networks for V2I communication.

Analysis of direct traffic at the transport protocol level in the WiMax-1/2 cluster oriented to offload the smart city's wireless ecosystem

“…However, the study does not address the signalling overhead required to update the priority level information, which likely fluctuates over time. Reference [ 32 ] suggested an incentive mechanism to motivate Wi-Fi access point owners to engage in data offloading. Their approach, the Delay-constraint and Reverse Auction-based Incentive Mechanism, addresses an optimization problem aimed at maximizing the mobile network operator's revenue while also considering the delay constraints of various user applications.…”