• Mobile Computing : A technology that allows transmission

of data, via a computer, without having to be connected to

a fixed physical link.
• Mobile voice communication is widely established
throughout the world and has had a very rapid increase in
the number of subscribers to the various cellular networks
over the last few years. An extension of this technology is
the ability to send and receive data across these cellular
networks. This is the principle of mobile computing.
• Mobile data communication has become a very important
and rapidly evolving technology as it allows users to
transmit data from remote locations to other remote or
fixed locations.
• Today many peoples use mobile computing for
different purpose
• Advances in technology
• – More computing power in smaller devices
• – Flat, lightweight displays with low power consumption
• – New user interfaces due to small dimensions
• – More bandwidth (per second? per space?)
• – Multiple wireless techniques
• • Technology in the background
• – Device location awareness: computers adapt to their environment
• – User location awareness: computers recognize the location of the
• user and react appropriately (call forwarding)
• • “Computers” evolve
• – Small, cheap, portable, replaceable
• – Integration or disintegration?
• There are 2 aspects of mobile computing
• – User mobility: users communicate “anytime,
anywhere, with anyone” (example: read/write
email on web browser)
• – Device portability: devices can be
connected anytime, anywhere to the network
• There are two different kinds of mobility:
• user mobility and device portability.
• User mobility refers to a user who has
• access to the same or similar telecommunication services
at different places, i.e.,the user can be mobile, and the
services will follow him or her.
• With device portability, the communication device moves
• Many mechanisms in the network and inside the device
have to make sure
• that communication is still possible while the device is
moving.
• communication device can exhibit one of the following
characteristics:
• Fixed and wired: The devices use fixed networks. This
configuration describes the typical desktop computer in an
office.
• Mobile and wired:Many of today’s laptops fall into this
category, users carry the laptop from one place to the next,
and reconnecting to the company’s network via the
telephone network and a modem.
• Fixed and wireless:This mode is used for installing
networks, in historical buildings to avoid damage by
installing wires, or at buying or selling of goods and services
shows to ensure fast network setup
• Mobile and wireless: No cable restricts the
user, who can roam between different
wireless networks. Today’s most successful
example for this category is GSM with more
than 800 million users.
 Applications
• 1. Vehicles:Today’s cars already comprise some, but tomorrow’s cars will
comprise many wireless communication systems and mobility aware
applications, like transmission of news, road condition, weather, music.
• For personal communication,a universal mobile telecommunications
system (UMTS) phone might be available offering voice and data
connectivity with 384 kbit/s.
• For remote areas,satellite communication can be used,
• For example, the current position of the car is determined via the global
positioning system (GPS).
• At the emergency situations local ad-hoc network use for the fast
exchange of information to help each other. In case of accident, there will
be fast services provided in to the accident place, this technology already
available in the cars.
• In the future, cars will also inform other cars about accidents via the ad-
hoc network to help them slow down in time, even before a driver can
recognize an accident.
• Figure 1.1 shows a typical scenario for mobile communications with many wireless devices.
• Networks with a fixed infrastructure like cellular phones
(GSM, UMTS) will be interconnected with trunked radio
systems (TETRA) and wireless LANs (WLAN).
• Satellite communication links can also be used.
• The networks between cars and inside each car will more
likely work in an ad-hoc fashion
• Wireless networks inside a car can made up of personal digital
assistants (PDA), laptops, or mobile phones, e.g., connected
with each other using the Bluetooth technology.
• So we can say that local ad-hoc network with vehicles close-by
to prevent accidents, guidance system, redundancy
• 2. Emergencies:
• early transmission of patient data to the hospital, current
status, first diagnosis
• replacement of a fixed infrastructure in case of
earthquakes, hurricanes, fire etc.
• Wireless networks are the only means of communication in
the case of natural disasters such as earthquakes.
• 3. Business:
• A travelling salesman today needs instant access to the
company’s database: to ensure that files on his or her
laptop reflect the current situation, to enable the company
to keep track of all activities of their travelling employees,
to keep databases consistent etc.
• Figure shows what may happen when employees try to communicate off
base.
• At home, the laptop connects via a WLAN or
LAN and DSL to the Internet.
• Leaving home requires a handover to another
technology,
• mobile communications should always offer as
good connectivity as possible to the internet,
the company’s intranet, or the telephone
network.
• 4. Replacement of wired networks
• wireless networks can also be used to replace wired networks,
• it is often impossible to wire remote sensors for weather forecasts,earthquake
detection, or to provide environmental information.
• Wireless connections, e.g., via satellite, can help in this situation.
• Wired network is infrequent and inflexible
• Many computer fairs use WLANs as a replacement for cabling.
• wireless networks are computers, sensors, or information displays
• in historical buildings, where excess cabling may destroy valuable walls or floors.
• 5. Infotainment and more
• wireless networks can provide up-to-date information at any appropriate location.
• Another growing field of wireless network applications lies in entertainment and
games to enable, e.g., ad-hoc gaming networks as soon as people meet to play
together.
• 6. Location dependent services
• Many research efforts in mobile computing and wireless networks try to hide
• the fact that the network access has been changed
• it is important for an application to ‘know’ something about the location or the
user might need location information for further activities. Several services that
might depend on the actual location can be distinguished:
• Follow-on services
– automatic call-forwarding, transmission of the actual workspace to the current location
• Information services
– „push“: e.g., current special offers in the supermarket
– „pull“: e.g., where is the Black Forrest Cherry Cake?
• Support services
– caches, intermediate results, state information etc. „follow“ the mobile device through the
fixed network
• Privacy
– who should gain knowledge about the location
• Mobile and wireless devices
• Even though many mobile and wireless devices
are available, there will be many more in the
future.
• There is no precise classification of such devices,
by size,shape, weight, or computing power.
• The following list gives some examples of mobile
and wireless devices graded by increasing
performance
 Sensor:
• A very simple wireless device is represented by a
sensor transmitting state information.
 Embedded controllers:
• Many appliances already contain a simple or
sometimes more complex controller
 Pager:
• pager can only display short text messages,
• has a tiny display, and cannot send any messages.
Pagers can even be integrated into watches.
 Mobile phones:
• The traditional mobile phone only had a simple black
and white text display and could send/receive voice or
short messages.
• Today, mobile phones migrate more and more toward
PDAs. Mobile phones with full color graphic display,
touch screen, and Internet browser are easily available.
 Personal digital assistant:
• PDAs typically accompany a user and offer simple
versions of office software
• The typical input device is a pen, with built-in character
recognition translating handwriting into characters.
 Pocket computer:
• pocket computers offering tiny keyboards, color
displays, and simple versions of programs found
on desktop computers
 Notebook/laptop:
• Finally, laptops offer more or less the same
performance
• as standard desktop computers; they use the
same software – the only technical difference
being size, weight, and the ability to run on a
battery. If operated mainly via a sensitive display
 History Of Wireless Communication
• The mobile and wireless devices of the future will be more
powerful, less heavy, and comprise new interfaces to the user and
to new networks. However, one big problem, which has not yet
been solved, is the energy supply.
• The more features that are built into a device, the more power it
needs.
• The higher the performance of the device, the faster it drains the
batteries
• Although the area of mobile computing and mobile communication
is developing rapidly, the devices typically used today still exhibit
some major drawbacks compared to desktop systems in addition to
the energy problem
• Mobile communication is greatly influenced by the merging of
telecommunication and computer networks.
• The use of light for wireless communications reaches back to ancient times.
• In former times, the light was either ‘modulated’ using mirrors to create a certain light on/light off
pattern
• Wired communication started with the first commercial telegraph line
• between Washington and Baltimore in 1843 and Alexander Graham Bell’s
• All optical transmission systems suffer from the high frequency of the carrier light.
• Today, DECT has been renamed digital enhanced cordless telecommunications for marketing
reasons and to reflect the capabilities of DECT to transport multimedia data streams.
• GSM was standardized in a document of more than 5,000
• pages in 1991. This first version of GSM, now called global system for mobile communication and
uses 124 full-duplex channels.
• GSM offers full international roaming, automatic location services, authentication, encryption on
the wireless link, efficient interoperation with ISDN systems, and a relatively high audio quality.
• It was soon discovered that the analog AMPS in the US and the digital GSM at 900 MHz in Europe
are not sufficient for the high user densities in cities.
• While in the US, no new spectrum was allocated for a new system, in Europe a new frequency band
at 1800 MHz was chosen
• In the US, different companies developed
different new, more bandwidth-efficient
technologies to operate side-by-side with
AMPS in the same frequency band.
• This resulted in three incompatible systems,
the analog narrowband AMPS (IS-88,(TIA,
1993a)), and the two digital systems TDMA
(IS-136, (TIA, 1996)) and CDMA (IS-95, (TIA,
1993b)).
• The invention of the electronic vacuum tube in 1906
by Lee DeForest (1873–1961) and Robert von Lieben
(1878–1913) helped to reduce the size of sender and
receiver.
• Nineteen twenty-eight was the year of many field
trials for television broadcasting
• The ‘Groupe Spéciale Mobile’ (GSM) was founded for
this new development.
• In 1983 the US system advanced mobile phone system
(AMPS) started
• Nineteen ninety-eight marked the beginning of mobile
communication using satellites with the Iridium system
• Iridium marked the beginning of small and
• truly portable mobile satellite telephones
including data service.
• Iridium consists of 66 satellites in low earth
orbit and uses the 1.6 GHz band for
communication with the mobile phone
 Market For Mobile Communications
• Although the growth in wireless and mobile
communication systems has slowed down, these
technologies have still a huge market potential.
• More and more people use mobile phones,
wireless technology is built into many cars,
wireless data services are available in many
regions, and wireless local area networks are
used in many places.
• Figure shows the increasing number of
subscribers to mobile phone services worldwide
 Some open research topics
 Interference: Radio transmission cannot be protected against interference using
shielding as this is done in coaxial cable or shielded twisted pair. For higher loss
rates for transmitted data or higher bit error rates respectively.
 Regulations and spectrum: Frequencies have to be coordinated, and
unfortunately, only a very limited amount of frequencies are available (due to
technical and political reasons). One research topic involves determining how to
use available frequencies more efficiently.
• Further improvements are new air interfaces, power aware ad-hoc networks,
smart antennas, and software defined radios (SDR). The latter allow for software
definable air interfaces but require high computing power.
 Low bandwidth: Although they are continuously increasing, transmission rates are
still very low for wireless devices compared to desktop systems.
• Local wireless systems reach some Mbit/s while wide area systems only offer some
10 kbit/s. One task would involve adapting applications used with high-bandwidth
connections to this new environment so that the user can continue using the same
application when moving from the desktop outside the building.
• Researchers look for more efficient communication protocols with low overhead.
• High delays, large delay variation: A serious problem for communication protocols
used in today’s Internet (TCP/IP) is the big variation in link characteristics.
• In wireless systems, delays of several seconds can occur, and links can be very
asymmetrical. Applications must be tolerant and use robust protocols.
 Lower security, simpler to attack: Not only can portable devices be stolen more
easily, but the radio interface is also prone to the dangers of eavesdropping.
Wireless access must always include encryption, authentication, and other security
mechanisms that must be efficient and simple to use.
 Shared medium: Radio access is always realized via a shared medium. As it is
impossible to have a separate wire between a sender and each receiver, different
competitors have to ‘fight’ for the medium. Although different medium access
schemes have been developed, many questions are still unanswered, for example
how to provide quality of service efficiently with different combinations of access,
coding, and multiplexing schemes.
 Ad-hoc networking: Wireless and mobile computing allows for spontaneous
networking with prior set-up of an infrastructure. However, this raises many new
questions for research: routing on the networking and application layer, service
discovery, network scalability, reliability, and stability etc.