Toward Smart Community Networks

The advent of IEEE 802.11 in the late 1990s spurred the development of new network paradigms. In particular, new technology enthusiasts saw the potential of WiFi to bring broadband Internet connections to under-provisioned areas, giving rise to networks deployed and maintained by their users. This paradigm led to non-profit decentralized structures that grow by the unplanned addition of heterogeneous network devices: community networks (CNs). There have been hundreds of CN deployments worldwide; some have disappeared, while others have blossomed into complex networks with thousands of nodes. The networking research community has been aware of CNs, and many works studied CNs in their various aspects: design (routing, scalability, security), deployment, measurements, services, and so on. We argue that emerging technologies will give a new impetus to CNs by transforming them into smart CNs. This article aims to lay out the technical features of future CNs and encourage the research community to tackle the stimulating research challenges they raise.