For long, node cooperation has been exploited as a data relaying mechanism.However, the wireless channel allows for much richer interaction between nodes.One such scenario is in a multi-channel environment, where transmitter-receiverpairs may make incorrect decisions (e.g., in selecting channels) but idleneighbors could help by sharing information to prevent undesirable consequences(e.g., data collisions). This represents a Distributed Information SHaring(DISH) mechanism for cooperation and suggests new ways of designing cooperativeprotocols. However, what is lacking is a theoretical understanding of this newnotion of cooperation. In this paper, we view cooperation as a network resourceand evaluate the availability of cooperation via a metric, $p_{co}$, theprobability of obtaining cooperation. First, we analytically evaluate $p_{co}$in the context of multi-channel multi-hop wireless networks. Second, we verifyour analysis via simulations and the results show that our analysis accuratelycharacterizes the behavior of $p_{co}$ as a function of underlying networkparameters. This step also yields important insights into DISH with respect tonetwork dynamics. Third, we investigate the correlation between $p_{co}$ andnetwork performance in terms of collision rate, packet delay, and throughput.The results indicate a near-linear relationship, which may significantlysimplify performance analysis for cooperative networks and suggests that$p_{co}$ be used as an appropriate performance indicator itself. Throughoutthis work, we utilize, as appropriate, three different DISH contexts ---model-based DISH, ideal DISH, and real DISH --- to explore $p_{co}$.
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