A Framework for Enabling Internet Access Using Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer Links

To realize the vision of ubiquitous computing and reachability, major technological advances have been achieved to make smart portable devices both highly capable and affordable. To facilitate connectivity to the Internet, these smart devices are equipped with different network interface cards (4G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi). However, such connectivity may become seriously reduced in places with intermittent network services and/or shortage of Wi-Fi coverage. This limitation may be seriously harmful in rescue scenarios during and after a disastrous event, since blocked users may become difficult to reach. In this paper we present a novel framework to overcome such issue by implementing a hot-spot accessible through device-to-device (D2D) links. In this work, Wi-Fi direct (WFD) is used in order to establish multi-hop P2P paths to the hot-spot. WFD has the same features that carries the standard Wi-Fi in terms of range and speed without using the infrastructure. Wi-Fi direct is largely emerging as a network technology standard enabled in the majority of smartphones. By exploiting nearby devices, which have Internet access, our framework enables users to publish contents. Moreover, our model is validated by using different smartphones and through extensive simulation experiments.