Modeling Disruption Tolerant Networks with Random Geographical Barriers

In recent years, the need for increased connectivity has extended from urbanized areas to locations previously unreachable via standard telecommunication networks. As a result, packet transmission occurs in a store-and-forward fashion, where nodes relay packets to neighboring nodes as they come in contact with each other, until the packet ultimately reaches its destination. In this paper, we focus on the existence of geographical barriers in the physical network and the performance effects these barriers place on the network. We determine that a threshold exists for which the delay not only peaks, but begins to decrease from this point on.