MIT at that time (2005) was involved with the One Laptop per Child project, an attempt to make an inexpensive low-power computer to help educate impoverished children. The advantages were thought to be reduced costs for digital copies of books and consumables like paper, with possible pedagogic improvements from the interactivity and flexibility. One of the crucial features of the laptop was to be a wireless ad hoc network that would permit the laptops to cooperate to provide more resources than an individual computer could afford. A practical but superior network algorithm would directly help educate more children by reducing the cost and power needed by the laptop. A wireless ad hoc network would cost less and use less power if it used standard radios (i.e. with integrated circuits for 802.11) and transferred more data over larger distances, with fewer intermediate radios.