Can We Use Your Router, Please?

Abstract

During rescue missions first responders rely on voice communication making crisis management nearly impossible without good means of communication. Unfortunately the communication technology used by first responders today does not scale well. Also most of the given infrastructure, such as cell towers, might be destroyed after a disaster. Therefore, ad-hoc and peer-to-peer-based communication schemes have been proposed in recent research to provide scalable and resilient communication. Most mobile phones today are equipped with wireless transceivers that make them suitable to participate in ad-hoc networks. But in this case, device density might be too small for a connected topology. In this paper, the authors propose an emergency switch for privately owned wireless routers. The switch allows wireless routers to transition to an emergency mode creating a supportive wireless mesh network. To analyze if such a network would result in a resilient topology real data from wireless routers in a city is gathered. They calculate the locations of private and public routers from GPS traces and compare the resulting networks with each other. Finally, the authors discuss open and critical questions and implications the proposed emergency switch would introduce.