A method is provided for mobile wireless ad hoc network, where network nodes using the same routing protocol are uniformly sharing a single contention channel. Network nodes are able to dynamically and distributedly switch roles according to surrounding network environment so that routing functions can be either activated or de-activated in order to improve routing efficiency and increase network capacity by reducing unnecessary routing overhead (which is caused by excessive redundant routing nodes). In addition, the nodes are able to self organize themselves into hierarchies or different roles according to different routing strategies. The proposed role-switching method can be implemented on network nodes which support existing routing protocols or native routing protocol proposed herein to further exploit the proposed role-switching method.