The Future Internet: Pushing the Technology Boundaries: N4C (Elwyn Davies) :: SESERV Workshop

SESERV Workshop 28 June 2011 1

Networking for Communications Challenged Communities: Architecture, Test Beds and Innovative Alliances

Grant Agreement: 223994

The Social Nature of Technical Choices

SESERV Workshop, Oxford Internet InstituteTuesday 28 June 2011

Elwyn Davies – [email protected] Consulting Ltd – www.folly.org.uk




Networking for Communications Challenged Communities

• Experimentally driven, user focused research• Provision of Internet-like services in extremely

(communications) challenged areas• Based on DTN…

Delay- and Disruption-Tolerant Networking• 3 year project – just finished (April 2011)• Two testbeds – Sweden and Slovenia




NorutTromsø, Norway

TannakJ okkmokk, Sweden

Luleå Tekniska Universitet, Sweden

Power Lake ABStockholm, Sweden

ITT I L tdPoznan, Poland

MEIS stoitve za okolje d.o.o, Šmarje – Sap, Slovenia

Kočevje, Slovenia test bed

Intel Performance Learning Solutions LtdLeixlip, Ireland

Trinity College DublinIreland

Folly Consulting LtdSoham, UK

Universidad Polit cnica Madrid, Spain

Albentia Systems, S.A.Legan s, Madrid, Spain

Instituto Pedro NunesCoimbra, Portugal

Swedish Lapland test bed

The Partners and the Test Beds




User Communities• Arctic Sweden: Sámi ‘Villages’

• Economic basis: Reindeer Herding• Semi-nomadic culture• Huge area of environmentally sensitive country• Extreme challenges

• No power or comms infrastructure• Kocevje, Slovenia: Sparsely inhabited

• Economic basis: Forestry, tourism, limited farming• ‘Destroyed’ culture – ethnic cleansing victim




Staloluokta, Sweden




Aims of N4C

• Support existing culture• Work within existing culture• Focus on needs of communities• Design applications and scenarios in

conjunction with local target users




Why do we need DTN?

Some DTN Use Casesfor ‘stressed’ networking

environments

Space:The Interplanetary Internet

Terrestrial:Opportunistic connections

Terrestrial:Roughly Scheduled connections

Comms from Earth – Space ProbesVery long delays, unidirectionalScheduled comms opportunities

Areas with no wired and minimal wireless comms.

Data transfer during encountersaccording to statistical pattern

Areas with no wired and minimal wireless comms.

Data on USB stick, transport by bus

N4C CCR Scenario

‘Conventional’ Internet assumes• short end-to-end delays• fairly stable connections

Protocols (especially TCP) and many applications don’t work well on networks that don’t match these requirements

Often in Communication Challenged Regions (CCRs) neither is satisfied




DTN => Store, Carry, ForwardScenario Data Delivery Paradigm Routing Mechanism

Conventional Internet(IP packet forwarding)

Independently handled packets with immediate

forward or discard

Precalculated Routesusing topology knowledge

(via OSPF, BGP etc)

Email(RFC 5322)

Unitary Transfer of complete emails with Store

and Forward at each intermediate hop

Overlay of configured links between (fixed) mail servers plus routing configuration

DTN(using RFC 5050 Bundle

Protocol)

Unitary Transfer of ‘Bundles’ with Store, Carry

and Forward at each intermediate hop node;

nodes maybe mobile.. Hence ‘carry’.

Depends on Use Case:Static Configuration,

Schedule Oracle, Delay Tolerant Link State or (Un)Pruned Epidemic




Working with the Sámi

• Reindeer movement monitoring• Support for reindeer business

• Basic applications – email, cached web• Not-so-Instant Messenger

• Intra-family communications• Environmental monitoring




Working in Slovenia

• Environmental monitoring• Support for local businesses

• Communications with workers in remote areas• Handling radiation worries

• Local nuclear power plant• Exhaust from local industries




Challenges• Terrain and National Parks

• High frequency radio is line of sight• Sensitive environments don’t allow permanent infrastructure

• Power• Sometimes more of a problem than communications

infrstructure• Symmetric communications

• Knowing when your equipment has met another equipment it could communicate with




The Data Mule

Photo sent toFacebook mobile upload from Staloluokta 17.08.2010,appearing on Facebook 20.08.2010. Sent by Karl Johan Grottum, Norut, using the Hiker’s PDA and the NSIMemail service for DTN developed by Samo Grašič, LTU.




Thank You

• If you need any further information:• For general information email [email protected] or look

elsewhere on the project wiki http://wiki.n4c.eu• Contact information for partners is provided with

each set of posters• The project deliverables can be found on the

download page at our website http://www.n4c.eu