BestPeer - a load-aware multi-path peer selection for Wireless Mesh Networks

In this paper we study the interactions between peer selection, routing and channel assignment while deploying Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems over multi-channel multi-radio Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). In particular we propose Bestpeer, a novel peer selection algorithm for WMNs which incorporates a cross-layer path load metric and integrates multi-path load balancing capability throughout the P2P download process in order to achieve faster resource disseminations. By comparing Bestpeer with BitTorrent through extensive simulations, we show that we can reduce the time to disseminate a resource by up to 40 %. The key mechanism used by Bestpeer to increase performance in WMNs is the effective exploitation of cross-layer information made available from the routing and channel assignment during the peer selection process in order to balance the load along high capacity paths.