Service Maps for Heterogeneous Network Environments
Bibliographic Entry
Dirk Kutscher, Jörg Ott; Service
Maps for Heterogeneous Network Environments;
7th Mobile Data Managament Conference; 2006
Abstract
Future heterogeneous wireless networks will encompass
different link layer technologies and allow selecting the
most appropriate network depending on different criteria.
To support mobile nodes in the selection process, network
information services are developed that provide the mobile
node with sufficient information about its network
neighborhood, typically focusing on the optimization of
handover processes. In this paper, we take a more general
approach towards network information services, which is
needed to support mobile communications in the existing
environments of WLAN hotspots and wide area mobile
communications networks. We introduce the notion of
"service maps", a mobile data management approach allowing
a mobile user to obtain a detailed view of available
networks and the services they offer
depending on the user context such as geographic position,
mobility paths, and application requirements. We review
our experiences with networking in highly mobile scenarios
from which we derive a set of requirements for a general
information service and present our system design and data
model that also accounts for business and (incremental)
deployment considerations.