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Much wireless technology is based upon the principle of direct point-to-point communication. Popular solutions like Group Standard for Mobile communications(GSM) and Wireless Local Area Network(WLAN) both uses an approach where mobile nodes communicate directly with some centralized access point. These types of networks demand centralization for configuration and operation. Contrary to this model is the multi-hop approach. In multi-hop scenarios, nodes can communicate by utilizing other nodes as relays for traffic if the endpoint is out of direct communication range.
Mobile ad-hoc networks, MANET[25], uses the multi-hop model. These are networks that can be set up randomly and on-demand. They should be self configuring and all nodes can be mobile resulting in a possibly dynamic network topology.