Intentional networking: opportunistic exploitation of mobile network diversity

Mobile devices face a diverse and dynamic set of networking options. Using those options to the fullest requires knowledge of application intent. This paper describes Intentional Networking, a simple but powerful mechanism for handling network diversity. Applications supply a declarative label for network transmissions, and the system matches transmissions to the most appropriate network. The system may also defer and re-order opportunistic transmissions subject to application-supplied mutual exclusion and ordering constraints. We have modified three applications to use Intentional Networking: BlueFS, a distributed file system for pervasive computing, Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client, and a vehicular participatory sensing application. We evaluated the performance of these applications using measurements obtained by driving a vehicle through WiFi and cellular 3G network coverage. Compared to an idealized solution that makes optimal use of all aggregated available networks but t...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: MOBICOM
• Authors: Brett D. Higgins, Azarias Reda, Timur Alperovich, Jason Flinn, Thomas J. Giuli, Brian Noble, David Watson
• Keywords: Application Intent, Application-supplied Mutual Exclusion, Communications, Intentional Networking, MOBICOM 2010