Rather than write up a bunch of requirements, we described a handful of scenarios that we wanted to be able to facilitate. These are listed below.

Put Link list here.

Story Scenarios

1. A ship pulls into its home port, and before the ship hits the pier, a wireless network link is made automatically to the local shore network and larger Internet. No manual configuration required.
2. Same as 1 except the port is not the ship’s home port, but any UNOLS facility offering this service.
3. A wireless network link is generated automatically between two ships at sea when they are in reception range. This requires no user interaction, and automated processes that look for the presence of the other ship will execute over the link to dedicated known hosts on the peer ship.
4. A link is generated automatically between three or more ships at sea when in reception range. If ship A is in range of ship B but not ship C, ship B can still forward packets on to ship C from ship A. (“Hidden nodes” are still routable.)
5. In the case of 3 or 4, if one ship is outfitted with a broadband satellite link to shore (e.g. Road Net), shipboard personnel can provide the other ships access to that link via the wireless ship-to-ship service.The satellite linked ship maintains usage statistics for link cost sharing between vessels and PIs.
6. An instrumented buoy outfitted with a wireless radio is externally triggered to attempt a wireless connection with a passing ship. When the connection is made, the buoy’s data and operating status are downloaded to a known server on that ship.
7. A ship passing within radio range of a participating shore facility maintains a constant data link to shore. The link might serve ships operating near institutions without deep water ports (e.g. an Ice Breaker passing Barrow), or ships conducting local coastal surveying, testing instrumentation or whatever.