An epidemiological study of information dissemination in mobile networks

We present an analytical, epidemiological, model for the overhead of information dissemination in mobile networks, which finds application in a range of settings, including resource discovery, information dissemination in sensor networks, location services and ad hoc network routing. We consider two principal information dissemination mechanisms, one for which nodes strictly relay information for other nodes, and the other for which they also take advantage of the information already being disseminated to insert their own data to share. The latter mechanism is denoted by path accumulation. We will show that the overhead with path accumulation scales as n3/2 and without path accumulation as n5/4. With respect to the connection rate, both scale as √λ. We also identify the cut-off point for path accumulation as ξc = 1- √2/√n. Below that threshold, path accumulation should be preferred, while above, path accumulation does not provide substantial benefits. Our model proves extremely accurate against simulation data.