Dimensionnement des messages dans un reseau mobile opportuniste

Understanding transport capacity in intermittently connected mobile networks (ICMN) is crucial since different applications have different interactivity and bandwidth requirements. One practical issue is how to transform an application’s messages into packets suitable for transport over an ICMN. In this paper, we propose a new Markovian model for random temporal graphs and show, both analytically and by replaying a real life trace obtained in a rollerblading tour, that the size of the messages sent over an ICMN has a decisive impact on their delivery ratio. A given message could therefore be broken down into smaller packets to increase reliability. However, we also show that this gain in reliability only appears under tight constraints on the maximum delay tolerated. Mobile application designers should therefore balance message size against both application requirements and network topology dynamics to improve performance.