1st International ICST Conference on Access Networks

Research Article

Opportunistic wireless access networks

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1145/1189355.1189366,
        author={Kaustubh S. Phanse and Johan Nykvist},
        title={Opportunistic wireless access networks},
        proceedings={1st International ICST Conference on Access Networks},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={ACCESSNETS},
        year={2006},
        month={9},
        keywords={Opportunistic Collaborative networks connectivity trace model.},
        doi={10.1145/1189355.1189366}
    }
    
  • Kaustubh S. Phanse
    Johan Nykvist
    Year: 2006
    Opportunistic wireless access networks
    ACCESSNETS
    ACM
    DOI: 10.1145/1189355.1189366
Kaustubh S. Phanse1,2,*, Johan Nykvist1,2,*
  • 1: Luleå University of Technology, Department of Computer Science and Electrical
  • 2: Engineering, 97187 Luleå, Sweden
*Contact email: kphanse@ltu.se, johan@csee.ltu.se

Abstract

Today, intermittent connectivity is common in wireless access networks and it seems like mobile users will have to deal with discontinuous network access in the future. But existing network protocol architectures are not resilient to disruption of communication links and often communication fails when faced with sporadic connectivity. We discuss a new paradigm for wireless access called opportunistic collaborative networking, where communication is disruption-tolerant and wireless devices exploit any opportunity of communication, albeit temporary, to forward messages towards the destination. For developing protocols for these innovative networks requires understanding of their structure and dynamics. We present some results from analysis of real-life traces representing two such mobile network environments with ad-hoc, intermittent connectivity.