ABSTRACT
Similar to other evolving technologies, wireless mesh networking has a number of vendors offering features that are either proprietary or are based upon research that has yet to be standardized. One such are is the routing protocols used by wireless mesh networks. This chapter provides a brief overview of Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET), including its characteristics and the goals of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group established to standardize one or more routing protocols for the mobile network. Any routing protocol that is used by a MANET should support a dynamic topology. The primary near-term goal of the IETF MANET working group is to standardize one or more routing protocols to support operations over a mobile network. In addition to short-term goals oriented toward developing dynamic routing protocols, the IETF MANET working group has a number of issues that can be considered to represent long-term goals.
