The term of "mother pod" refers to the pod that contains the master clock of the synchronous sensor web system. The mother pod has no special hardware associated with it, its designation as a mother is merely based on the ID number associated with the pod. Often the mother pod serves as a primary portal point to the Internet, but this is done only for deployment convenience. Early papers referenced the mother pod as "a prime node" if it additionally contained special hardware for a particular type of input/output device (say an RF modem).