Andreas Fasbender

Any network, any terminal, anywhere [cellular radio]

In light of the current technology trends in the area of applications, wireless networks, and terminals, this article isolates a number of design requirements of future advanced mobile systems. We discuss research and standardization activities in the area of service support platforms and their corresponding application programming interfaces (API), where we especially focus on the wireless application protocol (WAP), Mobile Station Execution Environment (MExE), and HTTP-NG as candidates for the provision of mobile Internet services in cellular networks.

Phone-Controlled Delivery of NGN Services into Residential Environments

The horizontally layered architecture of the IMS/NGN standards family enables the delivery of services independent of access network and requesting device. In this article, the authors propose a further separation of service control and delivery, allowing the requesting device – in particular a users mobile phone – to invite other devices (we will focus on DLNA appliances) into the service delivery, enhancing both user experience and service design flexibility. The proposed solution builds on exploiting proximity technologies (e.g. barcodes, NFC) for pairing the control device with a remote environment. Motivated by scenarios, the architecture concepts are explained and a prototype that was implemented for validation is described. Selected findings and a short overview of related standardization efforts conclude the paper.

Media Delivery to Remote Renderers Controlled by the Mobile Phone

In todays content delivery solutions, service delivery and control are still tightly coupled, a service typically being delivered to the same device that controls the session. We present a solution that was designed with the goal to decouple service control and delivery. Using our approach, multimedia streaming services can be delivered to off-the-shelf DLNA devices in visited networks. The service provider receives information about the remote media player and access environment via a mobile phone. Proximity technologies (e.g. barcodes, NFC) of the control device are used for the exchange of required credentials. This paper describes a typical scenario and our prototype implementation.

Delivering Services to Residential Appliances by Utilizing Remote Resource Awareness

Service providers are nowadays offering a variety of services, and in particular multimedia content delivery. Besides, consumer appliances are increasingly becoming digitalized including support for communication networks. However, it is difficult, and in many cases impossible, to use these services with standard consumer appliances, such as TV and media player devices. Rather, usage is often restricted so that they can only be accessed through web browsers from PCs, mobile phones and similar terminals. This is unfortunate, because dedicated consumer appliances are often better suited to handle the content and thereby give consumers a better experience. Within this paper, three design approaches that support such services are described and compared, along with a prototype that shows this concept.

Implementation of communication and management protocols for the integrated road transport and traffic environment

We propose a protocol architecture for the European Integrated Road Transport and Traffic Environment (IRTE)/Intelligent Vehicle Highway System (IVHS). As a basis to maximize integration at application and subnetwork levels, we seek inspiration from the ISO8473 Connectionless Network Protocol recommendation, as well as from some other ISO/OSI standards. We claim our approach strikes an adequate balance between conventional protocol composition, and IRTE industrial concerns. By implementing the favored protocol architecture in a testbed, we also give evidence that such a balanced approach is not a vision of a distant future.<<ETX>>

Cellular networking technologies in ITS solutions: opportunities and challenges

The Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) domain is already today the leading vertical industry sector for the adoption of cellular connectivity. In-built and brought-in access to mobile telecommunication networks is a key enabler for advanced safety, navigation and infotainment services. The growing complexity of the industry ecosystem as well as the diverse service requirements put on the underlying connectivity and service enablement infrastructure demand for open, flexible and scalable end-to-end ITS solutions. In this paper we present scenarios, solution requirements, service enablers and an end-to-end ITS system architecture, covering in-vehicle and backend components, connectivity solutions and service life-cycle management. While we put specific emphasis on presenting opportunities and challenges relating to cellular ITS solutions, we also point out aspects relating to the required marriage with Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) systems. Complemented by experiences from projects with industry partners and the research community and by reflections on ongoing efforts in ITS standardization, we conclude that only by a combination of cellular and DSRC networking technologies the full range of consumer and business needs will be addressed.