Asymptotic Bounds of Information Dissemination in Power-Constrained Wireless Networks

Dissemination of common information through broadcasting is an integral part of wireless network operations such as query of interested events, resource discovery and code update. In this paper, we characterize the behavior of information dissemination in power-constrained wireless networks by defining two quantities, i.e., broadcast capacity and information diffusion rate and derive fundamental limits in both random extended networks. We find that using multihop relay, the rate of broadcasting continuous stream is thetas((log n)-alpha/2) in extended networks. Regardless of the density, information can diffuse at constant speed, i.e., thetas (1). Furthermore, we prove that a unified routing structure and MAC schedule can be devised that achieves order-optimal broadcasting performance in both delay and throughput. The theoretical bounds obtained and proof techniques are instrumental to the modeling and design of efficient wireless network protocols.