Recent research in this area reported that a selective broadcast approach for NWB could possibly lead to a considerable improvement in network-wide broadcast coverage with a small increase in network overhead. Moreover, this approach does not require proactive neighbor discovery and is resilient to mobility. Finally, the solution can be added to virtually all NWB approaches to improve their reliability.

Mobile ad-hoc networks suffer with packet or data loss more than the fixed mobile network systems. The problem is much more complicated as in ad-hoc networks, mobile links are subject to transmission errors and the network topology changes frequently and unpredictably. A packet gets lost due to several transmission errors such as no route to the destination, broken links and network congestions. Network-wide broadcasting is one of main approach used in routing protocols to assist data transfer from one to the other location in ad-hoc networks.

There are different types of flooding or broadcasting techniques which are used by network-wide broadcasting. Each of these flooding or broadcasting techniques has certain benefits and drawbacks in them. As NWB is one fundamental routing operation, it requires more discrete and accurate guidelines to be drawn for routing protocols to decide which flooding mechanism could be best suited in a particular situation. I have little doubt in stating that resolution in an exact form could help us in improving the network efficiency by reducing the packet loss in an active transmission.

Dr. Humayun Bakht completed his Ph.D at the School of Computing and Mathematics in Liverpool at John Moores University. Prior to his current course of studies, he has successfully completed his MSc Software Engineering and BSc Electronics Engineering from University of Liverpool UK and Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Pakistan. Humayun's research interest is mobile ad-hoc networks, in particular, the development of a new routing algorithm for this type of networking. He can be reached at humayunbakht@yahoo.co.uk and you can visit his Web site at http://www.geocities.com/humayunbakht/.