Delay tolerant network on smartphones: applications for communication challenged areas

Abstract

This paper discusses the Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) service and protocol stack and presents an implementation of it on the Android platform that is called "Bytewalla". It allows the use of Android phones for the physical transport of data between network nodes in areas where there are no other links available, or where existing links need to be avoided for security reasons or in case the Internet is shut down by a government authority like it happened in some Arab countries during the spring of 2011. The implementation of a store and forward messaging application and a Sentinel Surveillance health-care application (SSA) that runs on top of Bytewalla are presented together with a few usage scenarios. Our conclusion is that the integration of DTN links in the general IP-network architecture on mobile phone platform is feasible and will make it easier to integrate DTN applications into communication-challenged areas. To our knowledge our implementation of the bundle protocol is the first on the Android platform.