SOWER: self-organizing wireless network for messaging

Short Message Service (SMS) has become extremely popular in many countries, and represents a ~multi-billion dollars market. Yet many consumers consider that the price charged by the cellular network operators is too high. In this paper, we explain that there exist alternatives to cellular networks for the provision of SMS. In particular, we present the Self-Organizing Wireless messaging nEtwoRk (SOWER), an all-wireless network operable in cities. In SOWER, each user installs a wireless, power-plugged device at home and communicates by means of a mobile device. Based on our experimental measurements of IEEE 802.11 equipped devices, we show the feasibility of the concept in various urban scenarios. We also show that city-wide connectivity can be achieved even with a limited market penetration. We explain that the capacity of such networks is sufficient to support messaging communication.

[1]  C. E. Perkins.  Mobile IP , 1997 .

[2]  H. Dittmar,et al.  The new transit town : best practices in transit-oriented development , 2004 .

[3]  Yih-Chun Hu,et al.  Design and evaluation of a metropolitan area multitier wireless ad hoc network architecture , 2003, 2003 Proceedings Fifth IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications.

[4]  Sheng Zhong,et al.  Sprite: a simple, cheat-proof, credit-based system for mobile ad-hoc networks , 2003, IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428).

[5]  Charles E. Perkins,et al.  Ad-hoc on-demand distance vector routing , 1999, Proceedings WMCSA'99. Second IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications.

[6]  Zygmunt J. Haas,et al.  The shared wireless infostation model: a new ad hoc networking paradigm (or where there is a whale, there is a way) , 2003, MobiHoc '03.

[7]  Martin Vetterli,et al.  Locating nodes with EASE: last encounter routing in ad hoc networks through mobility diffusion , 2003, IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428).

[8]  Michalis Faloutsos,et al.  Scalable ad hoc routing: the case for dynamic addressing , 2004, IEEE INFOCOM 2004.

[9]  Theodore S. Rappaport,et al.  Wireless communications - principles and practice , 1996 .

[10]  Chunming Qiao,et al.  Integrated cellular and ad hoc relaying systems: iCAR , 2001, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[11]  Yih-Chun Hu,et al.  Ariadne: A Secure On-Demand Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks , 2005, Wirel. Networks.

[12]  Victor C. M. Leung,et al.  Secure Routing for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks , 2006 .

[13]  Ying-Dar Lin,et al.  Multihop cellular: a new architecture for wireless communications , 2000, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2000. Conference on Computer Communications. Nineteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (Cat. No.00CH37064).

[14]  Tracy Camp,et al.  A survey of mobility models for ad hoc network research , 2002, Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput..

[15]  Haiyun Luo,et al.  UCAN: a unified cellular and ad-hoc network architecture , 2003, MobiCom '03.

[16]  François Baccelli,et al.  Impact of interferences on connectivity in ad hoc networks , 2005, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

[17]  Qun Li,et al.  Communication in disconnected ad hoc networks using message relay , 2003, J. Parallel Distributed Comput..

[18]  Levente Buttyán,et al.  Stimulating Cooperation in Self-Organizing Mobile Ad Hoc Networks , 2003, Mob. Networks Appl..

[19]  H. Hashemi,et al.  The indoor radio propagation channel , 1993, Proc. IEEE.

[20]  Charles E. Perkins,et al.  Mobile IP; Design Principles and Practices , 1997 .

[21]  Charles E. Perkins,et al.  Highly dynamic Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector routing (DSDV) for mobile computers , 1994, SIGCOMM.

[22]  Yanbin Liu,et al.  Reputation propagation and agreement in mobile ad-hoc networks , 2003, 2003 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking, 2003. WCNC 2003..

[23]  David A. Maltz,et al.  DSR: the dynamic source routing protocol for multihop wireless ad hoc networks , 2001 .

[24]  Franklin D. Ohrtman,et al.  Wi-Fi Handbook: Building 802.11b Wireless Networks , 2003 .

[25]  M. Hata,et al.  Empirical formula for propagation loss in land mobile radio services , 1980, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

[26]  A. Girotra,et al.  Performance Analysis of the IEEE 802 . 11 Distributed Coordination Function , 2005 .

[27]  Kaveh Pahlavan,et al.  A new statistical model for site-specific indoor radio propagation prediction based on geometric optics and geometric probability , 2002, IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun..

[28]  Paolo Santi,et al.  The Critical Transmitting Range for Connectivity in Sparse Wireless Ad Hoc Networks , 2003, IEEE Trans. Mob. Comput..

[29]  Roger Karrer,et al.  Enabling large-scale wireless broadband , 2004, Comput. Commun. Rev..

[30]  Xiaoyan Hong,et al.  Landmark routing in ad hoc networks with mobile backbones , 2003, J. Parallel Distributed Comput..

[31]  A. Kara,et al.  Blockage/shadowing and polarization measurements at 2.45 GHz for interference evaluation between Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 WLAN , 2001, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium. 2001 Digest. Held in conjunction with: USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting (Cat. No.01CH37229).

[32]  Panganamala Ramana Kumar,et al.  RHEINISCH-WESTFÄLISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN , 2001 .