Design principles for robust opportunistic communication

By exploiting transient communication opportunities a mobile device can increase throughput and dramatically reduce energy and monetary costs in return for higher algorithmic complexity and larger variations in message delivery delays. I argue that such a mode of communication will play a significant role in future mobile communication systems. In this talk, I will motivate the need for opportunistic communication by presenting some non-trivial application contexts. I will outline the Opportunistic Communication Management Protocol, developed over the last four years at the University of Waterloo, that meets (most of) these requirements. I will then focus on ten design principles for robust opportunistic communication, drawing from experiences from my research group in developing several practical systems. I conclude with a survey of some areas for future research in this area.