Description

In recent times, the growth of mobile devices (especially smartphones) is phenomenal.

These devices support Bluetooth and Wifi connectivity. Further, they are equipped

with good computing power and memory. Because of this, an entirely new network

paradigm has emerged in which encounters between these mobile devices can be exploited

for opportunistic data transfer without using any fixed network infrastructure 5]. This

opportunistic network paradigm is called Pocket Switched Network (PSN) as we carry

smartphones in our pockets. Message broadcast, news spread, traffic updates, microblogging

and peer-to-peer file sharing are some of the applications which can run on such

type of network. Further, it can significantly offload infrastructure based networks such

as cellular network and infrastructure based Wifi network and reduce data cost for users

considerably 6].

As these devices are carried by humans, their encounter patterns depend on human

mobility patterns. Thus, knowledge of human movement behaviour and social structure

can be exploited for efficient peer-to-peer communication 7, 8]. As a result, this network

paradigm is also called Mobile Social Network (MSN).