One of the new networking concepts which was born during the last decade is the communication between cars using short range wireless solutions, known as VANET (Vehicular Ad hoc NETwork). Despite the significant research efforts the VANET are still in the infancy and so far there are no implementations. In fact the VANET concept imposes a lot of serious problems, which so far have been resolved only partially. The most important problem is the intermittent connectivity of VANET nodes caused by high mobility of cars. The high dynamics of cars combined with usage of short range communications make the connectivity among the cars very unstable, so even the best effort service cannot be guaranteed. Of course, the communication quality differs in cities during traffic jams (where we may obtain dense and stable networks) from one in highways (where the VANET network is sparse and the topology is highly dynamic). Due to the variety of communication scenarios it is very hard to predict the generic transport characteristics of VANET networks. It is worth to mention that there have been created many routing protocols for VANET. Unfortunately, most of them are focused on specific scenarios only. Another VANET problem deals with the definition of services suitable for these networks. VANET can be used for safety applications (this is the primary goal), for driving support information services (information about parking places, points-of-interest, etc.) and, in some concepts, it can offer classic Internet services including high quality media streaming. Of course, the above mentioned VANET problem with highly unreliable communication will limit the service portfolio in the same way as it is observed in other networks. It has to be noted however, that in VANET the diversity of communication quality is enormous; in some situations high quality links of high throughput can be created (in case of parked cars) but at the other extreme there is highly intermittent communication which enables only the exchange of short messages between the nodes (the highway case). The next VANET specific problem is related to the identification of service recipients and the way in which the information is disseminated among them. It has to be noted that the client-server model, very popular in the Internet, has only limited or even no usage in VANET, because such networks are generally server-less. Using node address for service delivery also has limited usage, because it characterizes neither a node nor its service requirements. The classic unicast communication has very limited usage as well. The range controlled broadcast,
www.intechopen.comMobile Ad-Hoc Networks: Applications 126 multicast (if groups are identified) or anycast in some cases are better suited for, and in many (though not all) cases the geocasting is a solution of choice. A very important problem concerns the incremental deployment of VANET and is linked to VANET business model. There is no doubt that the deployment of such networks will progress gradually, and it is expected th...