MEAN INTERNODAL DISTANCE IN REGULAR AND RANDOM MULTIHOP NETWORKS

The minimum necessary aggregate link capacity in a telecommunications network is directly proportional to the mean distance between nodes. The mean internodal distance is therefore an important network characteristic. This study provides the surprising result that most network topologies, including those constructed at random, display mean internodal distances caparable to those of many carefully designed networks. Thus, careful selection of network topology to minimize the mean internodal distance may be important in only the most sensitive applications. And even in such sensitive applications, an almost randomly chosen network topology may be the best choice.