Relays, Base Stations, and Meshes : Enhancing Mobile Networks with Infrastructure
Authors
N. Banerjee, M.D. Corner, D. Towsley, B.N. Levine
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Networks composed of mobile nodes inherently suffer from intermittent
connections and high delays. Performance can be improved by
adding supporting infrastructure, including base stations, meshes,
and relays, but the cost-performance trade-offs of different designs is
poorly understood. To examine these trade-offs, we have physically
deployed a large-scale vehicular network and three infrastructure
enhancement alternatives. The results of these deployments demonstrate
some of the advantages of each kind of infrastructure; however,
these conclusions can be applied only to other networks of similar
characteristics, including scale, wireless technologies, and mobility
patterns. Thus we complement our deployment with a demonstrably
accurate, analytical model of large-scale networks in the presence
of infrastructure.
Based on our deployment and analysis, we make several fundamental
observations about infrastructure-enhanced mobile networks.
First, if the average packet delivery delay in a vehicular deployment
can be reduced by a factor of two by adding x base stations, the
same reduction requires 2x mesh nodes or 5x relays. Given the high
cost of deploying base stations, relays or mesh nodes can be a more
cost-effective enhancement. Second, we observe that adding small
amount of infrastructure is vastly superior to even a large number
of mobile nodes capable of routing to one another, obviating the
need for mobile-to-mobile disruption tolerant routing schemes.
Publication Date
September, 2008
Venue
MOBICOM
Published To
Conference
Publication Type
Externally published
ITA Area
Project 3, Technical area 1
Download a copy of the paper here
mobicom08.pdf
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