Problems when realizing ad hoc networks: how a hierarchical architecture can help

Despite the fact that many electronic devices are equipped with wireless interfaces and a lot of publications on wireless ad hoc and mesh networking exist, these networks are seldom used in our everyday life. A possible explanation is the fact that only few of the numerous theoretically promising proposals lead to practical solutions on real systems. Currently, wireless network design is mostly approached from a purely theoretical angle. In this paper, common theoretical assumptions are challenged and disproved, and key problems that are faced when putting theory to practice are determined by experiment. We show how these problems can be mitigated, and motivate why a heterogeneous hierarchical wireless mesh architecture can help in making wireless ad hoc networking a reality.