DakNet: rethinking connectivity in developing nations
TL;DR: DakNet, an ad hoc network that uses wireless technology to provide asynchronous digital connectivity, is evidence that the marriage of wireless and asynchronous service may indeed be the beginning of a road to universal broadband connectivity.
Abstract: DakNet provides extraordinarily low-cost digital communication, letting remote villages leapfrog past the expense of traditional connectivity solutions and begin development of a full-coverage broadband wireless infrastructure. What is the basis for a progressive, market-driven migration from e-governance to universal broadband connectivity that local users will pay for? DakNet, an ad hoc network that uses wireless technology to provide asynchronous digital connectivity, is evidence that the marriage of wireless and asynchronous service may indeed be the beginning of a road to universal broadband connectivity. DakNet has been successfully deployed in remote parts of both India and Cambodia at a cost two orders of magnitude less than that of traditional landline solutions.
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23 Apr 2006
TL;DR: The evaluations show that MaxProp performs better than protocols that have access to an oracle that knows the schedule of meetings between peers, and performs well in a wide variety of DTN environments.
Abstract: Disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs) attempt to route network messages via intermittently connected nodes. Routing in such environments is difficult because peers have little information about the state of the partitioned network and transfer opportunities between peers are of limited duration. In this paper, we propose MaxProp, a protocol for effective routing of DTN messages. MaxProp is based on prioritizing both the schedule of packets transmitted to other peers and the schedule of packets to be dropped. These priorities are based on the path likelihoods to peers according to historical data and also on several complementary mechanisms, including acknowledgments, a head-start for new packets, and lists of previous intermediaries. Our evaluations show that MaxProp performs better than protocols that have access to an oracle that knows the schedule of meetings between peers. Our evaluations are based on 60 days of traces from a real DTN network we have deployed on 30 buses. Our network, called UMassDieselNet, serves a large geographic area between five colleges. We also evaluate MaxProp on simulated topologies and show it performs well in a wide variety of DTN environments.
2,148 citations
Cites background from "DakNet: rethinking connectivity in ..."
...The assumptions we make are based on our existing DTN network (see Section IV) composed of buses and desktop computing hardware....
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30 Aug 2004
TL;DR: This work forms the delay-tolerant networking routing problem, where messages are to be moved end-to-end across a connectivity graph that is time-varying but whose dynamics may be known in advance, and proposes a framework for evaluating routing algorithms in such environments.
Abstract: We formulate the delay-tolerant networking routing problem, where messages are to be moved end-to-end across a connectivity graph that is time-varying but whose dynamics may be known in advance. The problem has the added constraints of finite buffers at each node and the general property that no contemporaneous end-to-end path may ever exist. This situation limits the applicability of traditional routing approaches that tend to treat outages as failures and seek to find an existing end-to-end path. We propose a framework for evaluating routing algorithms in such environments. We then develop several algorithms and use simulations to compare their performance with respect to the amount of knowledge they require about network topology. We find that, as expected, the algorithms using the least knowledge tend to perform poorly. We also find that with limited additional knowledge, far less than complete global knowledge, efficient algorithms can be constructed for routing in such environments. To the best of our knowledge this is the first such investigation of routing issues in DTNs.
1,854 citations
Cites background from "DakNet: rethinking connectivity in ..."
...While many rural connectivity projects involve attempts to provide conventional Internet access to remote areas, a small number of projects are taking an alternative approach which focuses on asynchronous messaging in order to greatly reduce the cost of connectivity [25, 20, 23]....
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TL;DR: The most interesting case studies related to opportunistic networking are surveyed and a taxonomy for the main routing and forwarding approaches in this challenging environment is discussed and organized.
Abstract: Opportunistic networks are one of the most interesting evolutions of MANETs. In opportunistic networks, mobile nodes are enabled to communicate with each other even if a route connecting them never exists. Furthermore, nodes are not supposed to possess or acquire any knowledge about the network topology, which (instead) is necessary in traditional MANET routing protocols. Routes are built dynamically, while messages are en route between the sender and the destination(s), and any possible node can opportunistically be used as next hop, provided it is likely to bring the message closer to the final destination. These requirements make opportunistic networks a challenging and promising research field. In this article we survey the most interesting case studies related to opportunistic networking and discuss and organize a taxonomy for the main routing and forwarding approaches in this challenging environment. We finally envision further possible scenarios to make opportunistic networks part of the next-generation Internet
1,201 citations
Cites background from "DakNet: rethinking connectivity in ..."
...One such example is the DakNet Project [5] aimed at realizing a very low-cost asynchronous ICT infrastructure to provide connectivity to rural villages in India, where it is not cost-effective to deploy standard Internet access....
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22 Aug 2005
TL;DR: An experiment measuring forty-one humans' mobility is presented, in exhibiting a power-law distrbution for the time between node contacts, and the implications on the design of forwarding algorithms for PSN are discussed.
Abstract: Pocket Switched Networks (PSN) make use of both human mobility and local/global connectivity in order to transfer data between mobile users' devices. This falls under the Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) space, focusing on the use of opportunistic networking. One key problem in PSN is in designing forwarding algorithms which cope with human mobility patterns. We present an experiment measuring forty-one humans' mobility at the Infocom 2005 conference. The results of this experiment are similar to our previous experiments in corporate and academic working environments, in exhibiting a power-law distrbution for the time between node contacts. We then discuss the implications of these results on the design of forwarding algorithms for PSN.
1,021 citations
18 Jun 2007
TL;DR: A forwarding protocol which exploits both the opportunistic nature and the inherent characteristics of the vehicular network in terms of mobility patterns and encounters, and the geographical information present in navigator systems of vehicles is presented.
Abstract: Vehicular networks can be seen as an example of hybrid delay tolerant network where a mixture of infostations and vehicles can be used to geographically route the information messages to the right location. In this paper we present a forwarding protocol which exploits both the opportunistic nature and the inherent characteristics of the vehicular network in terms of mobility patterns and encounters, and the geographical information present in navigator systems of vehicles. We also report about our evaluation of the protocol over a simulator using realistic vehicular traces and in comparison with other geographical routing protocols.
420 citations
Cites background from "DakNet: rethinking connectivity in ..."
...There are a number of existing delay tolerant routing protocols ( [18, 20, 17], etc) These protocols exploit different mechanisms to route a message to the destination such as statistics of previous encounters, or precise mobility schedules to find the best routes....
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References
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TL;DR: A mixed-methods research strategy designed to assess the potential of community networking in rural Tamil Nadu, India shows opportunities for socioeconomic development through ICT-enabled information access and states the importance of basic communication technologies and contextually relevant information services.
Abstract: This article reports the results and conclusions of a mixed-methods research strategy designed to assess the potential of community networking in rural Tamil Nadu, India. The data reported and analyzed in this article include socioeconomic and household spending, agricultural marketing and price search, availability and use of information on agricultural problems, and communication media use. We use these data to define a framework of existing sources of information for various community agents, with a special emphasis on farmers. We analyze the methods and costs at which these agents obtain information, and identify information and communication gaps that information and communication technologies (ICTs) may help alleviate. This study allows us to demonstrate opportunities for socioeconomic development through ICT-enabled information access. The article concludes by stating the importance of basic communication technologies and contextually relevant information services, and suggesting recommendations fo...
63 citations