Energy-efficient wireless communication

In this chapter we present an energy-efficient highly adaptive network interface architecture and a novel data link layer protocol for wireless networks that provides Quality of Service (QoS) support for diverse traffic types. Due to the dynamic nature of wireless networks, adaptations in bandwidth scheduling and error control are necessary to achieve energy efficiency and an acceptable quality of service. In our approach we apply adaptability through all layers of the protocol stack, and provide feedback to the applications. In this way the applications can adapt the data streams, and the network protocols can adapt the communication parameters

A directionally based bandwidth reservation scheme for call admission control

This paper proposes a new advanced Call Admission Control(CAC) strategy involving for the first time, a bandwidth reservation scheme that is influenced by the direction attribute of a mobile terminal (MT). Aside from the Quality-of-Service (QoS) parameters, the direction attribute plays a key role in efficiently reserving resources for MTs supporting multimedia communications for different QoS classes. The framework for a direction-based CAC system is entirely distributed and may be viewed as a message passing system, where MTs inform their neighbouring base stations (BS) not only of their QoS requirements, but also of their mobility parameters. The base stations then predict future demand and reserve resources accordingly, only admitting those terminals that can be adequately supported. The bandwidth reservation scheme proposed in this paper, integrates the direction attribute into the conventional Guard Channel (GC) scheme. Simulation results prove that this new scheme offers significant improvements in both Call Blocking Probability (CBP) and bandwidth utilization, under a variety of differing traffic conditions

Energy-efficient adaptive wireless network design

Energy efficiency is an important issue for mobile computers since they must rely on their batteries. We present an energy-efficient highly adaptive architecture of a network interface and novel data link layer protocol for wireless networks that provides quality of service (QoS) support for diverse traffic types. Due to the dynamic nature of wireless networks, adaptations are necessary to achieve energy efficiency and an acceptable quality of service. The paper provides a review of ideas and techniques relevant to the design of an energy efficient adaptive wireless networ

Mobility: a double-edged sword for HSPA networks

This paper presents an empirical study on the performance of mobile High Speed Packet Access (HSPA, a 3.5G cellular standard) networks in Hong Kong via extensive field tests. Our study, from the viewpoint of end users, covers virtually all possible mobile scenarios in urban areas, including subways, trains, off-shore ferries and city buses. We have confirmed that mobility has largely negative impacts on the performance of HSPA networks, as fast-changing wireless environment causes serious service deterioration or even interruption. Meanwhile our field experiment results have shown unexpected new findings and thereby exposed new features of the mobile HSPA networks, which contradict commonly held views. We surprisingly find out that mobility can improve fairness of bandwidth sharing among users and traffic flows. Also the triggering and final results of handoffs in mobile HSPA networks are unpredictable and often inappropriate, thus calling for fast reacting fallover mechanisms. We have conducted in-depth research to furnish detailed analysis and explanations to what we have observed. We conclude that mobility is a double-edged sword for HSPA networks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first public report on a large scale empirical study on the performance of commercial mobile HSPA networks