## 1 Introduction
The central challenges for addressing this problem include (a) determining effective measures for estimating the route quality by accurately modeling the effects of interference in addition to route length in the wireless domain of the WOBAN, (b) using the quality measures in an anycast WOBAN where the mesh routers can reach to any of the gateways for accessing the Internet, and (c) addressing the computational complexity of solving the anycast routing and channel assignment problems together. As the proposed joint solution involves significant computation complexity, a key issue is to develop an approach that utilizes tools to reduce the computational burden for practical implementations. In this regard, our main contributions in this paper are as follows: \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Standard** & **Frequency** & **Bandwidth** & **Non-Overlapping Channels** \\ \hline
802.11b & 2.4 GHz & 20 MHz & 3 non-overlapping channels (channels 1, 6, and 11) \\ \hline
802.11a & 5 GHz & 20 MHz & 24 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels, and 12 non-overlapping 40 MHz channels \\ \hline
802.11g & 2.4 GHz & 20 MHz & 3 non-overlapping channels (channels 1, 6, and 11) \\ \hline
802.11n & 2.4/5 GHz & 20, 40 MHz & In 2.4 GHz band, there are 3 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels (channels 1, 6, and 11), and 1 non-overlapping 40 MHz channels (channel 3). In 5 GHz band, there are 24 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels, and 12 non-overlapping 40 MHz channels \\ \hline
802.11 ac & 5 GHz & 20, 60, 80, 160 MHz & 24 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels, 12 non-overlapping 40 MHz channels, 6 non-overlapping 80 MHz channels, and 2 non-overlapping 160 MHz channels \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: IEEE 802.11 standards and non-overlapping channels [3]. First, we develop a novel _route quality metric_ that utilizes performance characteristics of data packet transmissions, and effectively captures the effects of intraflow and interflow interference. 2. Second, we propose a _joint routing and channel assignment protocol (JRCA)_ that tries to maximize the overall quality of communication paths in the network by employing the developed route quality metric. For channel assignment, JRCA employs a combination of _backtracking_ and _genetic algorithm_ to reduce the convergence time. The distinctive aspect of this work is that the WOBAN architecture enables the _gateways to collaborate with each other_ through the optical backbone for determining the optimum gateway and route selections for all active nodes in the network. This allows for a hybrid design approach, i.e., combination of centralized and distributed, which is distinct from those followed in (purely) wireless mesh networks. 3. Finally, we evaluate the performance of JRCA using extensive simulations. Performance evaluations show that, compared to a single channel scenario, JRCA improves the network throughput by up to three times, whereas reduces the traffic delay by \(\sim\)six times, with 12 orthogonal channels and four NICs per router. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we provide a brief description of WOBAN architecture and the benefits of WOBAN compared to PON and wireless mesh networks. Next, we address the routing and channel selection problem in the wireless mesh network for a given set of ONUs and wireless mesh routers, and their locations. We also review prior work on related topics and unique challenges addressed in this work. In Section 3, we describe the approach for developing a route quality metric that takes into account wireless interference and channel contention. Next, we explore the problem of joint routing and channel assignment scheme in a multi-channel, multi-gateway WOBAN architecture, which significantly reduces the co-channel interference and channel contention. This is presented in Section 4. In Section 5, we present extensive performance evaluations of our proposed routing protocols in comparison to others. Conclusions are presented in Section 6.