Term Paper for CS395T Network Performance, Fall 1997

Wireless Networks:

An Introduction and Case Studies

Tao Wang
Computer Sciences Department, Univ. of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1188
taowang@cs.utexas.edu
CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

Wireless Networks: An Introduction and Case Studies

Tao Wang
Computer Sciences Department, Univ. of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1188
taowang@cs.utexas.edu

Abstract

Traditional networks provide place-to-place communication; Wireless networks

will provide person-to-person communication, which is certainly a desirable feature for

people on the move. In this paper, first we will make an introduction to various

technologies used in wireless networks with different scales. Then we will discuss the

current research directions of wireless networks. A number of universities and research

labs are planning or deploying wireless network infrastructures and conducting mobile

computing researches. We will overview some technical approaches proposed by

BARWAN project (UC Berkeley), Wireless Andrew (CMU), and MosquitoNet (Stanford).

Basically these projects are dealing with the same kind of problems, such as integration of

various wireless services, mobile IP, and mobile application support. We will discuss

BARWAN in more detail, while briefly introduce the other two projects.

1. Introduction

As the trend towards smaller, lighter and more powerful computers continues,

mobility and wireless connectivity become increasingly important. Traditional networks

is wired and provide place-to-place communication. Wireless networks will set users free

from tethers. It will provide mobile, person-to-person communication.

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1.1 Categories of Wireless Networks

There are several different scales of wireless networks. Table 1 summarizes the

typical performance parameters of wireless networks in different scales.

Type of Bandwidth Latency Mobility Typical Video Typical Audio

Network Performance Performance
In-Building >> 1Mbps <10 ms Pedestrian 2-way High quality
interactive 15-bit samples
Full frame rate 22 KHz rate
Campus-Area ~ 64 Kbps ~ 100 ms Pedestrian Med. Quality Med. Quality
Packet Relay Slow scan Reduced rate
Network
Wide-Area 19.2 Kbps > 100 ms Vehicular Freeze Frame Asynchronous
voice mail
Reginal-Area 4.8 kbps - 10+ > 100 ms Vehicular Seconds/Frame Asynchronous
Mbps Stationary Freeze Frame voice mail
(asymmetric)
Table 1. Typical wireless network performance parameters

1.1.1 High-Speed Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs)

Wireless LANs can be categorized as providing low-mobility high-speed data

communication within a confined region. Coverage range from a wireless terminal is ten

to hundreds of feet. There are many different WLAN products offered by different

vendors, with data rates ranging from hundreds of kb/s to more than 10Mb/s. An IEEE

standards committee, 802.11, has been attempting to put some order into this topic, but

their success has been somewhat limited.

There are two overall network architectures pursued by WLAN designers. One is

centrally coordinated and controlled network. There are base stations in these networks

that exercise overall control over channel access. The other type of network architecture

is the self organizing and distributed controlled network where every terminal has the

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same function as every other terminal, and networks are formed ad-hoc by

communications exchanges among terminals.

Nearly all WLANs in the United States have attempted to use one of the ISM

frequency bands for unlicensed operation under part 15 of the FCC rules. These bands are

902 to 928 MHz, 2400 to 2483.5 MHz, and 5725 to 5850 MHz, and they require users to

accept interference from any interfering source that may also be using the frequency.

Thus, if the transmitter power is to be adequate to cover more than a few feet, the WLAN

has to use either frequency hopping or direct sequence spread spectrum as an access

technology. One exception to the ISM band implementation is the Motorola ALTAIR,

which operates in a licensed band at 18GHz.

1.1.2 Wide Area Wireless Data Systems

Wide area data systems can be categorized as providing high mobility, wide

ranging, low-data-rate digital data communication to both vehicles and pedestrians.

The earliest and best known systems are the ARDIS network developed and run

by Motorola, and the RAM mobile data network based on Ericsson Mobitex Technology.

These technologies were designed to make use of standard, two-way voice, land mobile-

radio channels, with 12.5kHz or 25kHz channel spacing.

An (relatively) new technology called Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) is

being developed by major cellular carriers and manufactures. CDPD shares the 30 kHz

spaced 800 MHz voice channels used by the analog FM Advanced Mobile Phone Service

(AMPS) systems. Data rate is 19.2 kbps.

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CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

Another evolutionary path is toward smaller coverage areas or microcells. The

design compromises are aimed at reducing service costs by making very small and

inexpensive base stations that can be attached to utility poles, the sides of buildings, and

inside buildings, and can be widely distributed throughout a region. Reliable data rates

are about 75 kbps.

1.1.3 Satellite-based Mobile Systems

Satellite-based systems are the epitome of wide-area-coverage, expensive, base

station systems. These systems can provide very widespread, often global, coverage.

However, it is extremely expensive to maintain the orbital base station. Also, it is very

difficult to provide adequate link margin to cover inside buildings, or even to cover

locations shadowed by a tree. Thus, satellite systems are not likely to compete favorably

with terrestrial systems, at least in the near future.

1.2 Research Directions

Current research directions of wireless network are integration of various wireless

network services, mobile Interneting, and mobile application support.

1.2.1 Integration of Wireless Networks

It is highly unlikely that a single wireless network able to meet all mobile

computing needs will evolve. It is far more probable that many wireless networks will be

available, each of which will work in different scale, provide service over a variety of

geographical coverage areas at various speed at a variety of price level. Each network will

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serve a niche, but none will meet all needs. Accordingly, mobile computer users will need

to be able to access multiple networks in order to meet their needs. The user would in

general like a wireless network infrastructure that can provide seamless roaming, the

ability for mobile computers to continue to receive service as they move from the

coverage area of one wireless network to another.

To achieve seamless roaming, communication standards between wireless

services need to be set both vertically and horizontally. By vertical, we mean the roaming

ability to go up or down a scale level. For example, when a user ride a bus from his

office, where he can use WLAN, to his home, where he can only use a CDPD service, he

should be able to have his mobile computer connected to the net all the time. By

horizontal, we mean the roaming ability to go from the coverage area of one service

provider to that of another service provider.

1.2.2 Mobile Interneting

Within the Internet society, the middle-aged IP is now being face-lifted to be able

to deal with the various demand of growth and new services. Mobile IP was proposed to

work with wireless networks. It is in principle based on location registration and packet

redirection. A mobile node changing its location must register with some dedicated agent.

This agent then handshakes with the station’s home agent. Upon successful registration,

the mobile station’s current address is bound to its home address. Incoming datagrams are

first routed to the mobile station’s home network, where they are encapsulated by the

home agent and then tunneled to the foreign agent, which delivers them to the mobile

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host. The problem with mobile IP is that the routing path traversed by datagrams is only

suboptimal; worst case “triangle routing” may occur.

With Mobile IP, routing of datagrams to mobile stations is performed transparent

to the transport layer. However, this transparency is not always beneficial. For example,

frequent disruption in network layer connectivity due to the unreliable nature of wireless

medium and due to location registration update procedures significantly degrade the

transport layer performance. Recent research in this area motivates the need of supporting

mobility explicitly at the transport level or even every level of the OSI model.

Another issue about mobile Interneting is the security problem. As in any mobile

environment, the wireless links used to attach hosts to the Internet is highly vulnerable to

active or passive attacks. Therefore, privacy and authentication mechanisms, usually

performed in higher layers, may also need to be dealt with at IP level.

1.2.3 Mobile Application Support

We build the wireless infrastructure because we want to use them. To use them,

we need applications interfaces fine tuned to the nature of mobile computing. For

example, mobile real-time multimedia applications (such as video conferencing) requires

low latency. However, if we use traditional mobile IP, there will be a significant delay

caused by registering and packet re-direction. New method needs to be created to address

this kind of problems.

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2. Bay Area Research Wireless Access Network (BARWAN)

At the University of California at Berkeley, the BARWAN Project (Bay Area

Research Wireless Access Network) is developing a wide-area wireless data service

featuring a number of different wireless networks operating over different scales,

including regional-area, wide-area, metropolitan-area, campus-area, in-building, and in-

room.

The overarching goal of BARWAN is to demonstrate a scalable architecture that

can support wireless access across multiple overlay networks while delivering high levels

of end-to-end performance to applications. Future mobile information systems will be

built upon heterogeneous wireless overlay networks, extending traditional wired and

internetworked processing "islands" to hosts on the move over a wide area. Overlays vary

in bandwidth, latency, coverage, and application-level performance visibility. BARWAN

are developing new overlay internetwork management and applications support services

allowing mobile applications to operate across a wide range of network performance,

roaming among potentially distrusting service providers, and choosing among alternative

overlays for best performance given the current network state and application

requirements.

BARWAN is using the Metricom Ricochet microcellular data network service and

the Hughes Direct Broadcast Satellite system. The Hughes “DirectPC” service provides

downlink facilities only but operates at a raw data rate of 12 Mbps. The DirectPC system

thus must be used together with a separate (and probably slower) network link for the

uplink traffic.

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2.1 Technical Approaches Overview

2.1.1 Seamless Integration of Overlay Networks

No general network management architecture exists for effectively integrating

multiple overlay networks. Mobile applications roaming across overlays requires network

intelligence to determine that the mobile has moved from acceptable coverage in one

network to better coverage in another. But a global network management algorithm is

stilled needed to control handoffs across overlays based on current mobile connectivity.

Link quality is only one metric that determines handover; priority of access, applications

needs, and relative cost are equally important. Since overlays may not cooperate with one

another to render such decisions, mobile assisted handoff, in which the mobile host must

be an active participant in handoff processing, will be needed.

2.1.2 Support Services for Mobile Applications

Handover across overlays will change an application's network bandwidth and

latency. An new applications interface to the network management layers will be

designed to allow them to initiate handovers, to determine changes in their current

network capabilities, and to gracefully adapt their communications demands. It will better

integrate mobile applications and scaleable wire-line processing and storage capabilities

through an agent processing architecture that exploits data type specific transmissions to

manage the communications demands over dynamically varying wireless links.

2.1.3 Managing Mobile Connections to Support Latency-Sensitive Applications

Handoffs must be executed with lower latency than is now possible if (near) real-

time multimedia applications are to be well supported. One strategy moves the routing

and resource allocations to local sub-nets. For example, roaming authentication can be

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CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

cached locally to avoid repeated remote, latency-intensive transactions. BARWAN is

developing algorithms that exploit information about the location of mobile devices, the

geographical adjacency of cells, and the likely routes devices might take, to improve

handoff processing. End-to-end strategies like Mobile IP provide routing, but fall far

short for latency-sensitive connection-oriented services. More hierarchical approaches,

which localize information collection to the region or the sub-net containing the users, are

more scaleable.

2.1.4 Load Balancing for Scaleable Mobile Processing

Repositioning within future wireless networks will be a common event. Traffic

patterns will not be uniform, with high correlation between mobile host location, their

repositioning, and their requests for service. BARWAN is developing network

management architectures that build on decentralized algorithms to allocate network and

processing resources on demand, avoiding the static and centralized schemes of the past.

Furthermore, overlay networks provide an opportunity to share bandwidth and processing

across networks; current network load is one reason to initiate internetwork handoff.

2.2 Some Interesting Technical details

2.2.1 Layered Conceptual Architecture

Figure 1 shows an initial conceptual architecture for the wireless overlay

internetworking and mobile applications support services architecture to be pursued in

BARWAN. It has the collowing layers:

• Wireless Overlay Subnet Layer

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CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

This corresponds to the physical, data link, and network layers in the OSI

terminology. It represents the independent wireless networks to be integrated by the

proposed overlay architecture. These networks will interface to the rest of the architecture

through the standard Internet IP protocol suite.

• Overlay Network Management Layer

It corresponds to the network and transport layers in the OSI terminology, with

extensions to manage the multiple overlay networks. It builds an internetwork on top of

the independent wireless (and wired) subnetworks. It must handle the complex issues of

routing packets across heterogeneous subnets, while also choosing the most appropriate

wireless network to provide end-to-end connectivity to the mobile host given the

application's specifications for quality of service.

• Session Management Layer

This layer provides applications-independent session mechanisms.

• Data-type Specific Data Transmission Layer

This layer provides specialized functions for applications to manage the transport

of data type specific objects.

• Application Support Services Layer

This layer provides resource management and distributed processing services that

allow applications to migrate computation between the mobile's environment and the

backend processing environment.

• Mobile Multimedia Application Layer

This layer consists of the actual mobile applications exploiting the underlying

services and network management functions.

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CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

Figure 1. BARWAN layered conceptual architecture

2.2.2 Wireless Overlay Internetworking Architecture

BARWAN is developing new protocols, algorithms, and interfaces to enable

continuous connectivity, low-latency handoffs within and between overlays, network load

sharing between overlays, and dynamic reallocation of network resources to areas of high

user density. This is achieved through user tracking, vertical handoffs, overlay

cooperation, and connection-oriented strategies.

• Gateway-Centric Viewpoint

The design of conventional wireless networks places the mobile host at the center,

with gateways to other networks placed around the boundaries. Such an architecture

requires that the wireless network be homogeneous in terms of technology. The

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CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

BARWAN approach, on the other hand, is gateway-centric. In the gateway-centric view,

the subnet-to-subnet gateways are placed at the center of the architecture. Diverse

wireless (and wired) networks are integrated through software that mediates between the

mobile and the networks it could possibly connect to, supporting the mobile as it roams

among the multiple wireless networks. (See figure 2.)

Figure 2. Mobile-host-centric vs. Gateway-centric viewpoint

• User Tracking, History, and Geography for More Effective Network Management

Network management exploits the location of users and their physical

environment to yield low latency handoffs and better allocation of resources to high

traffic areas. Particularly inside buildings, it is possible to use the layout to localize the

collection and analysis of tracking information, and to drive the handoff algorithms.

Figure 3 shows a mobile host moving from one cell to an adjacent cell. Packets

are multicast to both base stations to minimize the overhead associated with transferring

the network state between the basestations.

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CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

Figure 3. Utilizing location info to reduce latency

• Support for “Vertical” Cooperative Handoffs

Conventional wireless handoffs are horizontal, i.e., within a homogeneous

wireless subnet. Vertical handoffs are new, allowing mobile hosts to roam between

overlays (see figure 4). The mobile host, or higher level network management, determines

when to switch the connections to an alternative overlay network, driven by signal

quality, network load, or the costs of using one overlay versus an alternative. A rules-

based mechanism for allowing applications to define their preferred connectivity was

outlined in the previous section.

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CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

Figure 4. Horizontal roaming vs. Vertical roaming

• Connection-Oriented Services for Mobile Hosts

Connection-oriented services with performance guarantees provide useful network

support for multimedia applications. The guarantees are typically achieved by reserving

network resources in advance. The dynamic nature of mobile handoffs introduce

complications; it is impractical to reserve all future channels. Rather than tear-down

connections only to rebuild them, we will pursue an incremental strategy that modifies

existing connections by partially re-establishing them after a horizontal handoff. This

method exploits the locality of logically adjacent cells to limit the amount of work

involved to re-establish the connection.

Figure 5. Adjacent cells share most of the connection route

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CS395T Network Performance Wireless Networks

Figure 5 shows the connections for adjacent cells A and B. Since the established

channel from the packet stream source to either cell will largely be along the same route,

only the tail of the connection needs to be rebuilt.

2.2.3 Applications Support Services

BARWAN is creating a toolkit for applications development that adapts to link

quality across a range of tradeoffs among computing power, memory for client caching,

bandwidth, cost, and latency. It will hide the effects of disconnection and handle

execution of untrusted code. The toolkit supports access to heterogeneous databases and

media-rich documents via a global network.

2.2.4 Mobile Applications

Some applications are being developed within the BARWAN testbed to validate

the network overlay and applications support architecture. Among them, there is a

medical application built at UC San Francisco. UCSF manages a testbed network linking

UCSF, Mt. Zion Hospital, and SF VA Medical Center, allowing neuro-images to be

transmitted in real-time to experts at UCSF. Physicians can access the large-scale image

and related data file server from their desktops. The group is also designing an integrated

cardiac care unit (CCU), combining multi-source patient information for distribution to

nurse stations and patients' bedside monitors. In addition, UCSF will soon be connected

to NLM via the NASA ACTS Satellite, enabling access to the National Health and

Nutrition Examination Surveys and the 3-D Visible Human image databases.

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3. Other Cases

A number of other universities and research labs are also planning or deploying

wireless network infrastructures and conducting mobile computing researches.

Carnegie Mellon University is building a wireless data network infrastructure

called Wireless Andrew. Wireless Andrew builds on the current wired network

infrastructure on campus, consisting mostly of 10- and 100-megabit per second Ethernet

equipment. For high-speed wireless data access on campus, they have installed a Lucent

Technologies WaveLAN network, currently covering five buildings at CMU. WaveLAN

uses direct-sequence spread spectrum radio in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz ISM bands to

provide a raw data rate of 2 megabits per second. For wide-area wireless data access, they

are using Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD). Their research activities are aimed at

making many networks useful and cost-effective for mobile users of voice and computing

services.

At Stanford University, the MosquitoNet is working towards providing seemingly

continuous network connectivity for mobile computers on the Internet. In MosquitoNet, a

host's connectivity can vary widely. On the desktop, a laptop computer will normally be

connected to a wired network via a PCMCIA card. Within the building (in the corridors,

or in meeting rooms) a laptop computer will normally be connected via a "wireless

ethernet" class of product, such as WaveLAN. Outside the building Metricom's radios are

used. These connect via the serial port like a modem and provide at best about 100kb/sec.

They have a direct range of about half a mile, and in areas covered by Metricom's pole-

top repeaters (like the San Francisco Bay area) they are usable anywhere within a large

metropolitan area. Beyond the reaches of Metricom's pole-top repeaters, they fall back to

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even slower services, such as cellular modems, CDPD, and pager-based communication

devices. These devices have extremely low throughput and incur expensive usage

charges, but they provide the final tier of the communication hierarchy when nothing

better is available. Widely different levels of cost, bandwidth, latency, and error rates

require them to provide support for system and application-level adaptability to

dynamically changing network characteristics. The goal is thus an environment in which

the quality of network connectivity may decrease dramatically, but it never completely

goes away. Some related research areas, such as adaptive caching algorithms that need

not handle complete disconnectivity, are also explored.

4. Conclusion

In this paper, we briefly introduced various technologies used in wireless

networks with different scales. We also discussed the current research directions of

wireless networks, which are:

• Integration of wireless network services;

• Mobile Interneting, and

• Mobile Application Support.

A number of universities and research labs are planning or deploying wireless

network infrastructures and conducting mobile computing researches. We overviewed

some technical approaches proposed by BARWAN, Wireless Andrew, and MosquitoNet.

Basically these projects are dealing with the same kind of problems as we summarized

above. We discuss BARWAN in more detail, introducing their proposed conceptual

layers, gateway-centric viewpoint, user-tracking, vertical hand-off, and so on.

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References

[1] Donald C. Cox, Wireless Personal Communication: What Is It?, IEEE Personal

Communications, April 1995.

[2] Otto Spaniol, et al, Impacts of Mobility on Telecommunication and Data

Communication Networks, IEEE Personal Communications, October 1995

[3] H. Balakrishnan, V. N. Padmanabhan, S. Seshan, and R. Katz, A Comparison of

Mechanisms for Improving TCP Performance over Wireless Links, Proc. ACM

SIGCOMM Conference, Stanford, CA, USA, Aug 1996.

[4] Randy H. Katz, Eric A. Brewer, The Case for Wireless Overlay Networks, SPIE

Multimedia and Networking Conference (MMNC'96), San Jose, CA, Jan 29-30, 1996.

[5] Hari Balakrishnan, Srinivasan Seshan, Elan Amir, Randy H. Katz, Improving TCP/IP

Performance over Wireless Networks, Proc. 1st ACM Conf. on Mobile Computing

and Networking, Berkeley, CA, November 1995.

[6] Alex Hills and David B. Johnson, A Wireless Data Network Infrastructure at

Carnegie Mellon University, IEEE Personal Communications magazine, February

1996

[7] David B. Johnson and David A. Maltz, Protocols for Adaptive Wireless and Mobile

Networking, IEEE Personal Communications magazine, February 1996

[8] Stuart Cheshire and Mary Baker, A Wireless Network in MosquitoNet, IEEE Micro,

February 1996.

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