Accommodating Transient Connectivity in Ad Hoc and Mobile Settings

Much of the work on networking and communications is based on thepremise that components interact in one of two ways: either they are connected viaa stable wired or wireless network, or they make use of persistent storage repositoriesaccessible to the communicating parties. A new generation of networks raises seri-ous questions about the validity of these fundamental assumptions. In mobile ad hocwireless networks connections are transient and availability of persistent storage is rare.This paper is concerned with achieving communication among mobile devices that maynever find themselves in direct or indirect contact with each other at any point in time.A unique feature of our contribution is the idea of exploiting information associatedwith the motion and availability profiles of the devices making up the ad hoc network.This is the starting point for an investigation into a range of possible solutions whoseessential features are controlled by the manner in which motion profiles are acquiredand the extent to which such knowledge is available across an ad hoc networ