DBS-IC: An adaptive Data Bundling System for Intermittent Connectivity

As mobile and wireless technologies become more pervasive in our society, people begin to depend on network connectivity, regardless of their location. Their mobility, however, implies a dynamic topology where routes to a destination cannot always be guaranteed. The intermittent connectivity that results from this lack of end-to-end connection is a dominant problem that leads to user frustration. Existing research to provide the mobile user with a facade of constant connectivity generally presents mechanisms to handle disconnections when they occur. In contrast, the system we propose in this paper provides ways to handle disconnections before they occur. We present a Data Bundling System for Intermittent Connections (DBS-IC) comprised of a Stationary Agent (SA) and a Mobile Agent (MA). The SA pro-actively gathers data the user has previously specified, and opportunistically sends this data to the MA. The SA groups the user-requested data into one or more data bundles, which are then incrementally delivered to the MA during short periods of connectivity. We fully implement DBS-IC and evaluate its performance via live tests under varying network conditions. Results show that our system decreases data retrieval time by a factor of two in the average case and by a factor of 20 in the best case.