WiFi Availability and Accessibility as Stated on Hotel Websites

Competition among hotels is increasing. As such, hotels are constantly looking for ways to increase both their competitive advantage and guest satisfaction. Hotels have discovered ways to do this through the use of technologies such as wireless networks. Wireless networks have the potential to provide guests with additional amenities as well as allow for greater productivity among staff members. This can both increase a hotel’s competitive advantage, and satisfy guest expectations. The purpose of this exploratory study, therefore, is to determine if hotels are taking advantage of this opportunity by promoting wireless internet availability via their property’s website and using it as a tool to attract customers. The findings of this study indicate that hotels are using their websites to provide information about availability of wireless access. However, limited information is indicated on the websites as to the location of access points and the charges related with use of the service

Energy Savings for Cellular Network with Evaluation of Impact on Data Traffic Performance

We present a concrete methodology for saving energy in future and contemporary cellular networks. It is based on re-arranging the user-cell association so as to allow shutting down under-utilized parts of the network. We consider a hypothetical static case where we have complete knowledge of stationary user locations and thus the results represent an upper bound of potential energy savings. We formulate the problem as a binary integer programming problem, thus it is NP-hard, and we present a heuristic approximation method. We simulate the methodology on an example real cellular network topology with traffic- and user distribution generated according to recently measured patterns. Further, we evaluate the energy savings, using realistic energy profiles, and the impact on the user-perceived network performance, represented by delay and throughput, at various times of day. The general findings conclude that up to 50% energy may be saved in less busy periods, while the performance effects remain limited. We conclude that practical, real-time user-cell re-allocation methodology, taking into account user mobility predictions, may thus be feasible and bring significant energy savings at acceptable performance impact

A Performance Study of Power-Saving Polices for Wi-Fi Hotspots

Wi-Fi hotspots are one of the most promising scenarios for mobile computing. In this scenario, a very limiting factor is the shortage of energetic resources in mobile devices. Legacy networking protocols are very inefficient in terms of energy management. This work focuses on a network architecture for energy-efficient mobile-Internet access through Wi-Fi hotspots (PS-WiFi). The proposed architecture is able to support any kind of (best effort) applications. In this paper we derive an analytical model of PS-WiFi to analyze the performance of the architecture and to tune its parameters. The model is validated exploiting measurements obtained by using an Internet prototype implementation. The validation shows that the model is able to predict the energy saved by the PS-WiFi architecture with a very good accuracy. Therefore, we used this model to better understand the behavior of PS-WiFi, and to assess its sensitiveness to the main Internet parameters, i.e., the throughput and the RTT

Energy Technology and Management

The civilization of present age is predominantly dependent on energy resources and their utilization. Almost every human activity in today's life needs one or other form of energy. As world's energy resources are not unlimited, it is extremely important to use energy efficiently. Both energy related technological issues and policy and planning paradigms are highly needed to effectively exploit and utilize energy resources. This book covers topics, ranging from technology to policy, relevant to efficient energy utilization. Those academic and practitioners who have background knowledge of energy issues can take benefit from this book