300,618 research outputs found
Delivery of broadband services to SubSaharan Africa via Nigerian communications satellite
Africa is the least wired continent in the world in terms of robust telecommunications infrastructure and systems to cater for its more than one billion people. African nations are mostly still in the early stages of Information Communications Technology (ICT) development as verified by the relatively low ICT Development Index (IDI) values of all countries in the African region. In developing nations, mobile broadband subscriptions and penetration between 2000-2009 was increasingly more popular than fixed broadband subscriptions. To achieve the goal of universal access, with rapid implementation of ICT infrastructure to complement the sparsely distributed terrestrial networks in the hinterlands and leveraging the adequate submarine cables along the African coastline, African nations and their stakeholders are promoting and implementing Communication Satellite systems, particularly in Nigeria, to help bridge the digital hiatus. This paper examines the effectiveness of communication satellites in delivering broadband-based services
Integration of heterogeneous devices and communication models via the cloud in the constrained internet of things
As the Internet of Things continues to expand in the coming years, the need for services that span multiple IoT application domains will continue to increase in order to realize the efficiency gains promised by the IoT. Today, however, service developers looking to add value on top of existing IoT systems are faced with very heterogeneous devices and systems. These systems implement a wide variety of network connectivity options, protocols (proprietary or standards-based), and communication methods all of which are unknown to a service developer that is new to the IoT. Even within one IoT standard, a device typically has multiple options for communicating with others. In order to alleviate service developers from these concerns, this paper presents a cloud-based platform for integrating heterogeneous constrained IoT devices and communication models into services. Our evaluation shows that the impact of our approach on the operation of constrained devices is minimal while providing a tangible benefit in service integration of low-resource IoT devices. A proof of concept demonstrates the latter by means of a control and management dashboard for constrained devices that was implemented on top of the presented platform. The results of our work enable service developers to more easily implement and deploy services that span a wide variety of IoT application domains
Smart Geographic object: Toward a new understanding of GIS Technology in Ubiquitous Computing
One of the fundamental aspects of ubiquitous computing is the instrumentation
of the real world by smart devices. This instrumentation constitutes an
opportunity to rethink the interactions between human beings and their
environment on the one hand, and between the components of this environment on
the other. In this paper we discuss what this understanding of ubiquitous
computing can bring to geographic science and particularly to GIS technology.
Our main idea is the instrumentation of the geographic environment through the
instrumentation of geographic objects composing it. And then investigate how
this instrumentation can meet the current limitations of GIS technology, and
offers a new stage of rapprochement between the earth and its abstraction. As
result, the current research work proposes a new concept we named Smart
Geographic Object SGO. The latter is a convergence point between the smart
objects and geographic objects, two concepts appertaining respectively to
Investigating e-business practices in tourism :a comparative analysis of three countries
This study examined the behaviour of tourist companies in relation to the adoption of e-business technologies and applications. The study aimed to identify groups of companies with homogenous behaviour among three European countries (Greece, Portugal and Norway). Based on data from a European survey, the study employed two-step cluster analysis which revealed 14 clusters of common behaviour (five clusters in Greece, five in Portugal and four in Norway). These clusters were named as: Leadersâ âTechnology Expertsâ, âFast Adoptersâ âBeginnersâ, âLate Adoptersâ. In Norway, the group âLate Adoptersâ also included companies characterised as âBeginnersâ in the other two countries. We suggest further investigation among European countries in order to reveal more groups of similar behaviour toward e-business adoption
IPv6 Network Mobility
Network Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting has
been used since before the days of the Internet as we know it
today. Authentication asks the question, âWho or what are
you?â Authorization asks, âWhat are you allowed to do?â And fi nally,
accounting wants to know, âWhat did you do?â These fundamental
security building blocks are being used in expanded ways today. The
fi rst part of this two-part series focused on the overall concepts of
AAA, the elements involved in AAA communications, and highlevel
approaches to achieving specifi c AAA goals. It was published in
IPJ Volume 10, No. 1[0]. This second part of the series discusses the
protocols involved, specifi c applications of AAA, and considerations
for the future of AAA
Semi-automated creation of converged iTV services: From macromedia director simulations to services ready for broadcast
While sound and video may capture viewersâ attention, interaction can captivate them. This has not been available prior to the advent of Digital Television. In fact, what lies at the heart of the Digital Television revolution
is this new type of interactive content, offered
in the form of interactive Television (iTV) services. On top of that, the new world of converged networks has created a demand for a new type of converged services on a range of mobile terminals (Tablet PCs, PDAs and mobile phones). This paper aims at presenting a new approach to service creation that allows for the semi-automatic translation of simulations and rapid prototypes created in the accessible desktop
multimedia authoring package Macromedia Director
into services ready for broadcast. This is achieved by a series of tools that de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces (UI) and applications for mobile terminals.
The benefits of rapid prototyping are essential for the production of these new types of services, and are therefore discussed in the first section of this paper.
In the following sections, an overview of the
operation of content, service, creation and management sub-systems is presented, which illustrates why these tools compose an important and integral part of a system responsible of creating, delivering and managing converged broadcast and telecommunications services.
The next section examines a number of metadata
languages candidates for describing the iTV services user interface and the schema language adopted in this project. A detailed description of the operation of the two tools is provided to offer an insight of how they can be used to de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces and applications for mobile terminals. Finally, representative broadcast oriented and telecommunication oriented converged service components are also introduced, demonstrating how these tools have been used to generate different types of services
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