Routing in Mobile Phone Ad Hoc Networks

The advancement of mobile phones is creating cheaper and more powerful devices that are capable of providing networking services using readily available technologies embedded on mobile phones. Networking services are usually provided using fixed cellular infrastructure owned by Cellular Network Providers. The use of the cellular infrastructure incurs the cost of data exchange. One way to eliminate costs is to create spontaneous ad hoc networks that allow mobile phone users to connect directly and share information using technologies such as Bluetooth. In order to efficiently share information, routing techniques are needed that efficiently use the resources in these networks. This paper presents the design of a mobile phone ad hoc network and a prototype system that uses established routing algorithms to determine which routing protocols are well suited for such a network.