Dagstuhl seminar on disruption tolerant networking

Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) is a new area of research to improve network communication when connectivity is periodic, intermittent, and/or prone to disruptions. A seminar on DTN was held at at Schloß Dagstuhl, Germany, from 3 to 6 April 2005. Researchers from different fields discussed their approaches to dealing with delays, intermittent connectivity, and the potential non-existence of an end-to-end path in a number of different environments. The two major areas identified were: (1) dealing with delay and disruption in the present Internet in the context of wireless, mobile, and nomadic communications, supporting existing applications and (2) addressing new applications with a focus on exploiting discontinuous connectivity and opportunistic contacts for asynchronous communications. This article briefly reviews the seminar presentations and discussions.