Ad-Hoc Networks – Are They Always Wireless?

ad-hoc-wirelesswireless

We see that almost always the term of "ad-hoc networks" comes with WSN (Wireless Sensor Network). Does it mean an ad-hoc network must be always wireless?

If we define an ad-hoc network as follows:

"An ad hoc network is a network that is composed of individual devices
communicating with each other directly." [1]

Can we imagine a "wired ad hoc" network?

[1] https://www.techopedia.com/definition/5868/ad-hoc-network

Best Answer

Caveat: This question might raise primarily opinion-based answers, and might be put on hold or considered off-topic, for exactly that reason.

Still, I dare to attempt an answer:

Following https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc#Networking

The term “ad hoc networking” typically refers to a system of network elements that combine to form a network requiring little or no planning.

The linked main wikipedia article subsequently focusses on wireless ad hoc networks only.

However, I don't quite see why a wired ad hoc network should not be thinkable, if a few conditions are met:

  • the devices to be connected all have a network interface of matching technology ("Ethernet" springs to mind).
  • there is a means to wire them all together, in a fashion that any participating device can talk to any (and to all) other participating device (Star? Bus? Ring? Anyone remember 10base2?)
  • the medium and topology chosen to interconnect the devices must also support multicast (or broadcast) propagation to all participants, or another mechanism to "talk to all devices", see above
  • a hub or switch to connect the devices might disqualify the setup as "ad hoc", as this would be an intermediate device (1).
  • the participating devices have a means to manage addressing on the emerging common subnet themselves (IPv4: APIPA, IPv6: link-local addresses with DAD), if the given underlying technology does not provide unique identifiers natively
  • the participating devices support suitable service announcement/discovery mechanisms and if needed some form of name resolution, so they have a way to find each other and find out what they can do with each other. Multicast based Zeroconf Networking (a.k.a. "Bonjour" or "Avahi") can do this.

... then yes, I would say that such a setup might be called an "ad hoc wired network".

(1) that might be subject of debate because a simple hub or switch fulfills the criterion of "little or no planning" with ease.

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