Wireless System: An Introduction - Case Study TCOER

Poornima Ghodke

 Wireless System:

Wireless Communications at any Time and Anywhere.

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

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.

The Wireless Revolution

Cellular is the fastest growing sector of communication

industry (exponential growth since 1982, with over 2 billion users worldwide today)
 Three generations of wireless
 First Generation (1G): Analog 25 or 30 KHz FM, voice only, mostly
vehicular communication
 Second Generation (2G): Narrowband TDMA and CDMA, voice and low
bit-rate data, portable units.
2.5G increased data transmission capabilities
 Third Generation (3G): Wideband TDMA and CDMA, voice and high bit-
rate data, portable units

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.

Wireless System: An Introduction - Case Study TCOER
Poornima Ghodke

Table 1. Typical wireless network performance parameters

Type of Bandwidth Latency Mobility Typical Video Typical Audio

Network Performance Performance

High quality
In-Building >> 1Mbps <10 ms Pedestrian 2-way 15-bit samples
interactive 22 KHz rate
Full frame 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)
Current Wireless Systems

 Cellular systems
 Wireless LANs
 Satellite Systems
 Paging Systems
 Bluetooth
 Ultrawideband Radios
 Zigbee Radios
Research Directions

Current research directions of wireless network are integration of various wireless network
services, mobile Interneting, and mobile application support.

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 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.

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.
  Technical Approaches Overview

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.

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.
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

cached locally to avoid repeated remote, latency-intensive transactions. Bay Area

Research Wireless Access Network (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.
Some Interesting Technical details

 Layered Architecture

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 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

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.
Conclusion

In this case study, 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.

Wireless System: An Introduction – Case Study

References

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Personal

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

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Wireless System: An Introduction – Case Study
Wireless System: An Introduction – Case Study