revisiting multimedia streaming in mobile ad hoc networks
Mobile ad hoc networks have been the subject of active research for a number of years. This paper investigates the feasibility of using such networks for transmitting multimedia streams. We observe that wireless network IO operations can be expensive (e.g., programmed IO cost, energy to operate wireless). Moreover, compared to nodes in infrastructure networks that either read or write network traffic, ad hoc traffic requires the intermediate node to perform many expensive network operations twice (read and then resend) and on behalf of other nodes. This observation raises an important question for the ad hoc community, should they a) demand that ad hoc routers support some minimum hardware resources (for example, full DMA support, twice the battery capacity)?, b) force an end-to-end resource management scheme that cooperatively reduces the network flow to half of what can be serviced by the weakest link? This would ensure that no intermediate node would see enough traffic to overwhelm them? or c) require that the local nodes protect themselves from transit traffic? This paper explores the last mechanism in order to provide some control over the resource consumed without a major revamp of existing operating systems or requiring special hardware. We implement our mechanism in the network driver and present encouraging preliminary results.
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