User:Plamka/Wisreed

Wisreed is a proprietary protocol for ad hoc mesh communications networks from Fujitsu. WisReed is a coined term   meaning  "wise reed". The protocol is claimed to allow greater number of nodes to be included in an ad hoc network than usually considered practical with other more popular ad hoc protocols, such as IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee). This is claimed to be mainly due to using a lighter routing function with fewer broadcast path-search messages.

The protocol is claimed to be equally well suited for wireless and wired communications channels, or a mixture of them.

One example given by Fujitsu of a possible application of WisReed protocol is in the creation of large-scale networks of sensors, sometimes referred by Fujitsu as "social" (in the sense opposed to "industrial", since the sensors are expected to operate in private homes and in public areas, not in industrial environments). Such networks would be highly dynamic, meaning that the nodes in them would become available for relaying traffic and then subsequently disappear at random and in significant numbers. Fujitsu claim that because WisReed would generate less control traffic (compared to some more traditional ad hoc mesh networks) it would be able to cope with the unpredictable topology of the sensor network and successfuly route traffic without clogging the network with path-search messages. However, the lower volume of purely control messages in WisReed could be negated by larger overhead in the structure of data messages as well as by suboptimal routing of data messages.