Mobile Data Offloading Using Opportunistic Communication and AP Deployment: A Case Study

There is an exponential surge in the number of Wi-Fi enabled devices which has caused an unprecedented overload on cellular and Wi-Fi networks. The two emergent techniques that have made significant difference in the reduction of network traffic surge are opportunistic communication and effective access point deployment. Since these techniques take user mobility into account, the authors propose to implement them at places where mobility pattern of users can be predicted intuitively, such as a college campus. The aim is to find strategic points across a college campus for deployment of Wi-Fi routers and explore the possibility of opportunistic communication. Then, the focus is on finding the target set which ensures high rate of information dissemination using proposed random and greedy algorithms. The mobility traces are captured using an android app WeCamp, which subsequently helps to find the locations with maximum number of users and to redeploy access points in such places using proposed algorithms to ensure uniform network speeds and efficient Wi-Fi connectivity.