Motivating Scenarios

The MultiNet virtualization architecture enables several new applications that were earlier not possible using a single wireless card. We enumerate a few of these here.

• Concurrent Connectivity: A user can connect her machine to an ad hoc network, while staying on her authorized infrastructure network.

• Network Elasticity: The range of an infrastructure network can be extended by allowing border nodes to act as relays for authorized nodes that are outside the range of the Access Point (AP).

• Gateway Node: A node that is part of a wireless ad hoc network and close to an AP, connected to the Internet, can become a gateway node for the ad hoc network [6].

• Increased Capacity: The capacity of ad hoc networks can be increased when nodes within interference range can communicate by switching on orthogonal channels [13].

• Virtual Machines: Users can connect different virtual machines [7,15] to physically different wireless networks.

All the above scenarios require nodes to be connected to more than one wireless network. In the sections that follow, we discuss the pros and cons of MultiNet and show why we consider it the preferred alternative in terms of cost, physical space, and improvement in battery lifetime.