On Flooding in the Presence of Random Faults

In this paper we study the efficiency of information flooding protocols in various communication networks, and in the presence of random faults. We show big differences between the flooding performance of networks with a seemingly similar structure. Since real-life systems usually consist of a moderate number of devices, the analysis presented in this paper is not limited to the asymptotic behavior of the flooding protocol. Instead, exact formulas are provided whenever possible. The presented results can be useful building blocks for the analysis of other, more sophisticated protocols. In particular, they may be used for planning and analyzing sensors network deployed in an environment subject to communication failures.