Part I

Introduction to Wireless & Mobile

Computing
Lecture 1
Recommended Books
• Mobile Computing Theory and Practice by Kumkum
Garg
• Mobile Communications by Jochen H. Schiller
Second Edition
• Pro Android 5 by Dave MacLean, Satya Komatineni
Grant Allen,
 Evolution of Wireless LAN
• In late 1980s, vendors started offering wireless products,
which were to substitute the traditional wired LAN (Local
Area Network) products.
• The idea was to use a wireless local area network to
avoid the cost of installing LAN cabling and ease the task
of relocation or otherwise modifying the network's
structure.
 Evolution of Wireless LAN Cont.
• The question of interoperability between different wireless
LAN products became critical.
• IEEE standard committee took the responsibility to form the
standard for WLAN.
• As a result IEEE 802.11 series of standards emerged.
 Evolution of Wireless LAN Cont.
• WLAN uses the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific, and
Medical (ISM) band that different products can use as
long as they comply with certain regulatory rules
• WLAN is also known as Wireless Fidelity or WiFi in
short
• There are many products which use these unlicensed
bands along with WLAN.
Evolution of Wireless LAN Cont.

• Examples could be cordless telephone, microwave oven etc.

• There are 3 bands within the ISM bands.
• These are 900-MHz ISM band, which ranges from 902 to 928 MHz;
• 2.4-GHz ISM band, which ranges from 2.4 to 2.4853 GHz; and
• the 5.4 GHz band, which range from 5.275 to 5.85 GHz.
• WLAN uses 2.4 GHz and 5.4 GHz bands.
• WLAN works both in infrastructure mode and ad hoc mode
 Evolution of Wireless PAN
• A wireless personal area network (WPAN) is a type of personal network
that uses wireless communication technologies to communicate and
transfer data between the user’s connected devices.
Evolution of Wireless PAN
• Techniques for WPANs are infrared and radio waves.
• Most of the Laptop computers support
communication through infrared, for which standards
have been formulated by IrDA (Infrared Data
Association-www.irda.org).
• Through WPAN, a PC can communicate with another
IrDA device like another PC or a Personal Digital
Assistant (PDA) or a Cellular phone.
 Radiowave
• Frequency range from 3 KHz and 1 GHz.
• Easy to generate
• Travel along long distances.
• Omni directional -travel in all the directions.
• Used indoor and outdoor - can penetrate through
the walls very easily.
 Infrared Waves
• Electromagnetic waves which have frequency
range between 300 GHz to 400 GHz.
• Cannot travel along long distances.
• Used for short range communication and they
also use line-of-sight of propagation.
• Cannot pass through solid objects like walls etc.
 Evolution of Wireless PAN Cont.
• The other best known PAN technology standard is
Bluetooth.
• Bluetooth uses radio instead of infrared.
• It offers a peak over the air speed of about 1 Mbps over a
short range of about 10 meters.
• The advantage of radio wave is that unlike infrared it does
not need a line of sight.
• WPAN works in ad hoc mode only
Ad hoc mode
• Ad-hoc networks are local area networks
• Also known as P2P networks because the
devices communicate directly, without relying
on servers.
• Like other P2P configurations, ad-hoc networks
tend to feature a small group of devices all in
very close proximity to each other.
Mobility/Wireless/Mobile
• Definition of mobility:
• user mobility: users communicate anytime,
anywhere, with anyone
• device portability: devices can be connected
anytime, anywhere to the network
• Definition of wireless:
• Un-tethered, no physical wire attachment
• Mobile Computing is an umbrella term used to
describe technologies that enable people to access
network services anyplace, anytime, and anywhere.
 MOBILE COMPUTING Cont.
• Mobile computing system allows a user to perform a
task from anywhere using a computing device in the
public (the Web), corporate (business information) and
personal information spaces (medical record, address
book).
Applications I
• Vehicles
• transmission of news, road conditions, weather
• personal communication using cellular
• position identification via GPS
• inter vehicle communications for accident prevention
• vehicle and road inter communications for traffic control,
signaling, data gathering
• ambulances, police, etc.: early transmission of patient data
to the hospital, situation reporting
• entertainment: music, video
Highway Scenario

GSM, 3G, WLAN,

Bluetooth, ...

PDA, laptop, cellular phones,

GPS, sensors
Applications II
• Mobile workers
• access to customer files and company documents stored in
a central location
• collaborative work environments
• access to email and voice messages
• Replacement of fixed networks
• remote sensors, e.g., weather, environment, road
conditions
• flexible work spaces
• LANs in legacy buildings
• Entertainment, education, ...
• outdoor Internet access
• intelligent travel guide with up-to-date
location dependent information
• ad-hoc networks for
multi user games
 Mobile Devices
Pager PDA Laptop
• receive only • simple graphical displays • fully functional
• tiny displays • character recognition • standard applications
• simple text • simplified WWW
messages

Sensors,
embedded
controllers

Mobile phones Palmtop

• voice, data • tiny keyboard
• simple text displays • simple versions
of standard applications

performance
 MOBILE COMPUTING Cont.
• Mobile computing is used in different contexts with
different names. The most common names are:
• Mobile Computing:
• The computing environment is mobile and moves
along with the user.
• This is similar to the telephone number of a GSM
(Global System for Mobile communication) phone,
which moves with the phone.
• The offline (local) and real-time (remote) computing
environment will move with the user.
• In real-time mode user will be able to use all his
remote data and services online.
MOBILE COMPUTING Cont.
• Anywhere, Anytime Information: This is the generic definition of
ubiquity, where the information is available anywhere, all the time.
• Virtual Home Environment: (VHE) is defined as an environment in
a foreign network such that the mobile users can experience the
same computing experience as they have in their home or
corporate computing environment.
• For example, one would like to put ones room heater on when one is
about 15 minutes away from home.
MOBILE COMPUTING Cont.
• Nomadic Computing: The computing environment is nomadic and
moves along with the mobile user.
• This is true for both local and remote services.
• Mobile computing is when you bring the computer
with you. Example smartphones.
• Ubiquitous computing is wherever you go, there is a
computer you can use. Example internet caffee,
mainframe terminals.
• In Ubiquitous it may be an only computer with multiple
access points and shared user space (cloud
computing),
• Pervasive computing is when computers are
everywhere inside all things, maybe also within you.
Example IoT
• In Pervasive computers are everywhere, but they don't
have to have an user interface, or necessarily be
controllable by users.
• toll systems on highways; tracking applications, such
as Life360, which can track the location of the user, the
speed at which they are driving and how much battery
life their smartphone has
MOBILE COMPUTING Cont.
• Global Service Portability: Making a service portable and
available in every environment. Any service of any environment
will be available globally.
• Wearable Computers: Wearable computers are those computers
that may be adorned by humans like a hat, shoe or clothes
(these are wearable accessories).
 Mobile Computing Functions
• We can define a computing environment as mobile if it
supports one or more of the following characteristics:
• User Mobility:
• User should be able to move from one physical location to
another location and use the same service.
• The service could be in the home network or a remote network.
• Example could be a user moves from London to New York and
uses Internet to access the corporate application the same way
the user uses in the home office.
• Example User can have a mobile and he can login to his mail
account from any desktop to check or compose emails.
 Mobile Computing Functions Cont.

• Network Mobility:
• User should be able to move from one network to another
network and use the same service.
• Example could be a user moves from Hong Kong to Karachi and
uses the same GSM phone to access the corporate application
through WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). In home network
he uses this service over GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)
whereas in Karachi he accesses it over the GSM network.
 Mobile Computing Functions Cont.
• Bearer Mobility:
• User should be able to move from one bearer to another and use
the same service.
• Example could be a user was using a service through WAP bearer
in his home network in Bangalore. He moves to Coimbatore,
where WAP is not supported, he switch over to voice or SMS(Short
Message Service) bearer to access the same application.
Bearer Mobility:
A device is connected to a mobile network using GPRS. The device
comes into range of a Wi-Fi network
The device decides to change to the Wi-Fi network and creates a
bearer to access the Wi-Fi network. The device then moves all the
existing connections across to the Wi-Fi bearer. In the final step the
device disconnects from the GPRS network.
Mobile Computing Functions Cont.
• Device Mobility:
• User should be able to move from one device to another and
use the same service.
• Example could be sales representatives using their desktop
computer in home office. During the day while they are on the
street they would like to use their Palmtop to access the
application.
Mobile Computing Functions Cont.
• Session Mobility:
• A user session should be able to move from one user-agent
environment to another.
• Session mobility involves both transfer and retrieval of an
active session. A transfer means to move the session on the current
device to one or more other devices. A retrieval causes
a session currently on another device to be transferred to the local
device.
• Example could be a user was using his service through a CDMA (Code
Division Multiple Access) IX network. The user entered into the
basement to park the car and got disconnected from his CDMA
network. User goes to home office and starts using the desktop. The
unfinished session in the CDMA device moves from the mobile device
to the desktop computer.
 Mobile Computing Functions Cont.
• Service Mobility:
• User should be able to move from one service to another.
• Example could be a user is writing a mail. To complete the mail
user needs to refer to some other information. In a desktop PC,
user simply opens another service (browser) and moves
between them using the task bar. User should be able to switch
amongst services in small footprint wireless devices like in the
desktop.
 Mobile Computing Functions Cont.
• Host Mobility:
• Host mobility refers to an end host changing its point of attachment to
the networks while the communication between the host and its
correspondent node stays uninterrupted.
• The user device can be either a client or server.
• When it is a server or host, some of the complexities change.
• In case of host mobility the mobility of IP needs to be taken care of.
Logical Functions of Mobile Computing
• The mobile computing functions can be logically divided
into following major segments:
1. User with device:
• The user device, this could be a fixed device like desktop computer in
office or a portable device like mobile phone.
• Example: laptop computers, desktop computers, fixed telephone,
mobile phones, digital TV with set-top box, palmtop computers, pocket
PCs, two way pagers, handheld terminals, etc.
Mobile Computing Functions
Logical Functions of Mobile Computing

2. Network:
• Whenever a user is mobile, he will be using different
networks at different places at different time.
• Example: GSM, CDMA, iMode, Ethernet, Wireless LAN,
Bluetooth etc.
Logical Functions of Mobile Computing
3. Gateway:
• This is required to interface different transport bearers.
• These gateways convert one specific transport bearer to another
transport bearer.
• Example: From a fixed phone (with voice interface) we access a service
by pressing different keys on the telephone. These keys generate DTMF
(Dual Tone Multi Frequency) signals.
• These analog signals are converted into digital data by the IVR
(Interactive Voice Response) gateway to interface with a computer
application.
• Other examples will be WAP gateway, SMS gateway etc.
Logical Functions of Mobile Computing

4. Middleware:
• This is more of a function rather than a separate visible node.
• In the present context middleware handles the presentation
and rendering of the content on a particular device.
• It will also handle the security and personalization for
different users
Logical Functions of Mobile Computing

5. Content:
• This is the domain where the origin server and content is.
• This could be an application, system, or even an aggregation
of systems.
• The content can be mass market, personal or corporate
content.
• Origin server will have some means to accessing the
database and the storage devices
Limitations and Issues in Mobile
Computing
• 1.Insufficient bandwidth: Mobile Internet access is generally slower
than direct cable connections, using technologies such as GPRS and
EDGE, and more recently HSDPA and HSUPA 3G networks. These
networks are usually available within range of commercial cell phone
towers. Higher speed wireless LANs are inexpensive but have very
limited range.
• 2.Security standards: When working mobile one is dependent on
public networks, requiring careful use of VPN. Security is a major
concern while concerning the mobile computing standards on the fleet.
One can easily attack the VPN for a very huge number of networks
interconnected through the line.
• 3.Power consumption: When a power outlet or portable generator is not
available, mobile computers must rely entirely on battery power.
Combined with the compact size of many mobile devices, this often
means unusually expensive batteries must be used to obtain the necessary
battery life.
• 4.Transmission interferences: Weather, terrain, and the
range from the nearest signal point can all interfere with
signal reception. Reception in tunnels, some buildings,
and rural areas is often poor.
• 5.Potential health hazards: More car accidents are
related to drivers who communicate with mobile
devices. Cell phones may interfere with sensitive
medical devices. There are allegations that cell phone
signals may cause health problems. 9
Limitations
1. Resource-poor
• Battery packs
• Hardware: Memory, CPU, peripherals
• Software – Middleware
• low bandwidth or bandwidth fluctuation
2. Less secure
• Lost or stolen
• Devices more vulnerable, endpoint authentication harder
3. Mobile connectivity
• Dynamic changes in environment: infrastructure
• Reliability: disconnections
4. Heterogeneous network
• Different devices, interfaces and protocols
5. Need for Location awareness
• Locality adaptation during search and handoff
Benefits of Mobile Computing
(a) Reduced radio congestion
(b) Lighter dispatch workload
(c) Easier resource management, allocation, and
supervision
(d) Cost savings by avoiding paper
(e) Reduced data transformation time and improved
record quality
Mobile Devices