The Ad Hoc Return Channel: A Low-Cost Solution for Brazilian Interactive Digital TV.

The upcoming terrestrial digital television technology brings a new class of services to traditional TV sets. A set-top box may, for example, access the Internet and send email. The interactive return channel makes these new services possible. This channel allows TV viewers to interact by sending data back to the TV broadcaster. In this article we analyze the viability of a wireless ad hoc network to implement the return channel. For this purpose, an ad hoc network is a low-cost and flexible solution. We evaluate the performance of an ad hoc return channel using the IEEE 802.11 wireless technology for different Brazilian geographical scenarios. The results show that ad hoc networking is a promising solution for the return channel of Brazilian interactive digital TV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]