Grassroots Group Communication Inside Peer-to-Peer Mobile Communities

Services for group and community communication are proliferating on the Internet. In the mobile device environment, community services are only beginning to flourish. Mobile devices have been lacking in group communication features. We present a peer-to-peer framework for group communication as one approach to sharing information using mobile devices. The framework uses mobile data networks and Session Initiation Protocol infrastructure to form connections between members and transfer data. No separate community server is used. A peer-to-peer framework is suitable for small, private groups of less than ten people and also short-lived ad hoc groups. Implementing a community service this way has many advantages. It allows pluggable community features to customize the service for different groups. It is responsive and easy to use, simple to set up and well integrated to other applications on the mobile device. Group administration is decentralized and there is no single point of failure. There is no associated cost of administering a server, and the group is even available offline. Data is transferred in the background so the users do not need to wait. Group members remain in control of their content and are able to share it with others securely.