Delay-tolerant broadcasting

Abstract

There are many asynchronous communication situations for which the prevalent continuous connectivity paradigm is not needed. Communication with a fair delay tolerance may instead be provided by intermittent store-and-forwarding between nodes. This paper proposes a design for an open, receiver-driven broadcasting system that relies on delay-tolerant forwarding of data chunks through mobility of wireless nodes. The system provides public broadcast channels, which can be openly used for both transmission and reception. We show by simulation under benchmark mobility models that a delay-tolerant broadcast channel has both a sufficiently high throughput and reach to be interesting as a competitive alternative to the regulated wireless broadcast channel. We also present the design of, and experiences with, a proof-of-concept prototype. Copyright 2006 ACM.