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Spontaneous wireless networks constructed out of mobile end-user devices (e.g. smartphones or tablets) are currently receiving considerable interest as they enable a wide range of novel, highly pervasive and user-centric network services and applications. In this paper, we focus on emergency-related scenarios, and we investigate the potential of spontaneous networks for providing Internet connectivity over the emergency area through the sharing of resources owned by the end-user devices. Novel and extremely flexible network deployment strategies are required in order to cope with the user mobility, the limited communication capabilities of wireless devices, and the intrinsic dynamics of traffic loads and QoS requirements. To this purpose, we propose here a novel approach toward the deployment of spontaneous networks composed by a new generation of wireless devices – called Stem Nodes (SNs) – to …