Meta-Networking

D2D communication means that devices talk to each other to garner opportunities to perform end-to-end communications or transfers. A typical and old example people use to describe D2D is that why do our mobile phones have to synchronize and communicate with the base station if they are very close to each other, perhaps in the same room. The D2D argument has been to exploit such situations and harvest more out of the scarce spectrum by not bothering the spectrum with connections to the base station(s). The D2D argument goes even further.. What if our devices can do this opportunistic talking to each other over multiple hops. That will extend the reach of the base stations (and hence the Internet), right? Yes, this is true. However, not so easy. Many innovations across the protocol stack as well as hardware front end are needed. In our recently funded NSF project, we are taking a stab at research challenges involved in reaching such an environment where devices talk to each other, and ...

I just finished reviewing a writeup. It was full of spelling errors, sloppy sentences, and annoying spacing and syntax errors. Flat out ugly! It is simply not in the best interest of you to send a colleague hastily written stuff. This is not just true for "official" writing like memos, papers or theses; but also true even for your emails or instant messages -- IMHO. Here are some of the reasons: (First) Impression is Almost Everything: This has become a rule of thumb for the modern society, but, it seems that we just forget it. When a reviewer reads a sloppily written document, the likelihood that (s)he giving a positive rating about your document is very close to zero.  Your Writing is Who You Are Inside: What you write eventually originates from your who you are inside. If you are an organized well-disciplined person, this will reflect on your writing too. Writings of people who think clearly tend to have clarity and brevity -- both good features of writing. Your Wri...

Hello colleagues, friends, foes.. I intend to maintain this blog as much as I can and sort of share my feelings and thoughts, and hopefully facts too. I do want to keep the blog scoped to my work, which involves research and teaching computer networking. I started with the blog name "meta-networking" but I/we may change it as time goes by. I did partially copycat the name from Prof. Demirbas's blog: http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com . Meta-X generally refers to something that helps X be X. Sometimes "meta" might be beyond just help, it might be necessary to make X. Meta-networking, in that sense, means the stuff you do to keep the network up and running. Protocols, money, labor, human behavior and other stuff I may be forgetting now all count into meta-networking. Meta-X also has this other meaning that meta is the residual or sort of like a dual of X. You maintain the meta along with X and use it for "helping" X be X. So, this meaning of meta is ...