As an extension of wireless Ad Hoc 1 and sensor 2 networks, wireless mesh networks (WMN) 3 have recently been developed as a key solution to provide high-quality multimedia services and applications, such as voice, data and video, over wireless personal area networks (WPAN) 4, wireless local area network (WXAN) 5 and wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) 6. A WMN usually has a hierarchical network infrastructure with backbone and access networks operated in both Ad Hoc and centralized modes with self-organization and self-configuration capabilities. Along with flexibilities, WMN brings several problems and requirements at the same time. In this thesis, problems and challenges such as packet collisions, interference and security issues are initialized discussed with existing solutions reviewed. After that, three innovative random access MAC protocols are proposed for wireless mesh access networks with comprehensive analysis and discussion followed. Moreover, in order to detect misbehaviors of wireless terminals and abnormal performance of applications, the network traffic flow concept in wired IP network is extended to WMN with "Meshflow" defined. Based on this new concept, a comprehensive framework is designed for wireless mesh backbone network to monitor users, routers, applications and services so as to achieve abnormal or intrusion detection, malicious user identification and traceback.