Towards Blockchain-enabled Wireless Mesh Networks

TL;DR

This paper explores integrating Hyperledger Fabric blockchain with wireless mesh networks, evaluating its performance and identifying improvements for practical deployment in real-world mesh environments.

Contribution

First deployment of Hyperledger Fabric in a production wireless mesh network, with performance analysis and identification of bottlenecks and improvement opportunities.

Findings

HLF can be integrated into wireless mesh networks

Performance bottlenecks identified in current HLF implementation

Opportunities for optimizing blockchain deployment in mesh networks

Abstract

Recently, mesh networking and blockchain are two of the hottest technologies in the telecommunications industry. Combining both can reformulate internet access and make connecting to the Internet not only easy, but affordable too. Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) is a blockchain framework implementation and one of the Hyperledger projects hosted by The Linux Foundation. We evaluate HLF in a real production mesh network and in the laboratory, quantify its performance, bottlenecks and limitations of the current implementation. We identify the opportunities for improvement to serve the needs of wireless mesh access networks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first HLF deployment made in a production wireless mesh network.