Aurelian Bria

Wireless Foresight: Scenarios of the Mobile World in 2015

Preface.1. Introduction.The Wireless Industry at a Crossroads.Be prepared for 2015.Scenarios of the Wireless World of 2015.Challenges for the Future.Creating Scenarios.Guide to the book.PART I: SCENARIOS.2. Wireless Explosion - Creative Destruction.A Sunny Berlin day in 2015.The Wireless Scene in 2015.3. Slow Motion.Ordinary Life in Stockholm and Business Life in Shanghai.The Wireless Scene in 2015.Wireless Technology in 2015.4. Rediscovering Harmony.A Weekday Morning in a Small Scandinavian Village.The Wireless Scene in 2015.Wireless Technology in 2015.5. Big Moguls and Snoopy Governments.Early April morning, Green Haven Gated Community, New York, US.The Wireless Scene in 2015.Wireless Technology in 2015.PART II: DRIVERS OF DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS.6. Trends and Fundamental Drivers.Fourteen Trends Shaping the Scenarios.Fundamental Drivers.Theories Supporting Fundamental Drivers.7. Technological Conclusions from Scenarios.System Technology in 2015.Mobile Terminals in 2015.Mobile Services in 2015.Part III - Challenges for the Future.8. Challenges for Technical Research.Low Cost Infrastructures and Services.Seamless Mobility.New and Advanced Services.Usability and Human-Machine Interface.Health and Environment.A Need for Cross-disciplinary Research.9. Challenges for the Wireless Industry.Introduction.The Challenges.10. Challenges for Key Regions.US.Europe.China.Japan and South Korea.Part IV - Moving Into the Future With Scenarios.11. Scenario Thinking and Scenario Making.Logics of Scenario Creation.Making our Scenarios.Other Studies About the Future.12. Summary and Concluding Remarks.The Book in Brief.Moving into the Future.Appendix A: User Segments.Appendix B: Wireless Foresight at Wireless@KTH.Glossary.References.Author Biographies.Index.

Affordable Mobile TV Services in Hybrid Cellular and DVB-H Systems

Mobile TV services are expected to become a key application in future wireless networks. The recently proposed terrestrial digital broadcast technology, DVB-H, especially designed for mobile services, is regarded as a powerful alternative to the 3G cellular networks that already offer these services out on a point-to-point basis. Unfortunately, the cost of supporting real-time streaming and full area coverage seems to be very high compared to fixed TV services. In this article we discuss hybrid IP datacast DVB-H and 3G systems as a possible solution for providing affordable network infrastructure and services. Our approach is DVB-H centric. The 3G cellular system plays the role of providing interactivity, error reporting, and repair for the DVB-H broadcast channel. To enable an easy and efficient interworking of DVB-H and 3G, we employ forward error correction at the application layer with digital fountain coding. The main way to provide lower cost services is to avoid full DVB-H area coverage from the beginning and to perform an incremental DVB-H network deployment that follows the user demand. In this direction, to hide the discontinuity in coverage from the perception of users, we propose to take advantage of the bursty character of DVB-H transmissions and the mobility of users. This is possible by sending additional parity data, either with the DVB-H or the cellular network, in the time intervals between original service bursts. We evaluate the potential DVB-H infrastructure cost savings determined by transmitting additional parity data in DVB-H when targeting vehicular users. The implications of delivering parity data through the cellular network also are discussed. The numerical investigations show a potential for significant cost savings compared with the traditional approaches

Scalability of DVB-H deployment on existing wireless infrastructure

This article investigates the scalability of DVB-H deployment on existing wireless infrastructure for digital broadcasting and cellular networks. Three deployment strategies are investigated: when only the broadcasting and the cellular infrastructure are used separately, and the case when both can be used jointly. The outcomes show that, in general, the investment needed for increasing the service capacity by switching to higher order modulation, or for increasing the coverage level over a given service area, lead to a higher annualized cost per Mb/s

Forward Error Correction for File Delivery in DVB-H

Reliable filecasting to vehicular users in wireless broadcast networks is a very challenging task, as an error-free transmission of the files is required. Reliability can be achieved by means of forward error correction (FEC) and post-delivery file repair mechanisms. In this paper, we describe and compare the standardized FEC schemes in DVB-H (digital video broadcast-handheld) at the link and application layer, and evaluate their performance for file delivery to vehicular users. We show that by using application layer FEC it is possible to efficiently correct the errors appeared due to temporarily shadowing and fast fading, by taking advantage of the time and space diversity introduced by the bursty character of DVB-H transmissions and terminal mobility. Our results may constitute a valuable guide for operators when dimensioning their network capacity and service bandwidths, especially in the situations when vehicular users represent a large part of the customer base.

Multi-radio resource management for ambient networks

The ambient networks concept targets forthcoming dynamic communication environments, characterized by the presence of a multitude of different wireless devices, radio access technologies, network operators and business actors, which can form instant inter-network agreements with each other. Multi-radio resource management (MRRM) mechanisms, coordinating several radio accesses, fulfill a key role for providing wireless services with improved resource efficiency, coverage and service quality. This paper presents an MRRM concept for Ambient Networks, describes the principal MRRM functions and discusses design criteria

Minimal Cost Planning of DVB-H Networks on Existing Wireless Infrastructure

This paper addresses the problem of efficient planning DVB-H networks assuming that the existing broadcasting and cellular infrastructure can be used in the network deployment. The planning objective consists in deciding which existing cellular sites should be used jointly with the broadcasting towers in a minimum cost deployment. A multi-objective genetic algorithm has been utilized to seek minimum cost network configurations as a function of the area coverage level. We investigate the achievable cost savings offered by a hybrid infrastructure compared to using only the existing broadcasting towers and the cellular sites separately

TV in the Mobile or TV for the Mobile: Challenges and Changing Value Chains

This paper intends to provide a techno-economic overview of the Mobile TV business and its business models. Recent trials have shown that a large number of people would like to consume mobile TV and few people doubt that this service will eventually be offered in the majority of wireless networks around the world. However, this service is not a simple add-on to the voice and data, but comes with totally new dimensions that challenge the present markets. The aim of this paper is to identify and describe these challenges in the technology, market behaviour, and industry strategy domains.

Cost-based resource management in hybrid cellular-broadcasting systems

This article introduces a cost based framework for the resource management in hybrid cellular-broadcasting systems with adaptive data rate. The considered service is delivery of multimedia items to the cache memory of user terminals. The problem investigated here is the minimization of the delivery cost per item, given that we have at our disposal a cellular and a broadcasting system. The proposed solution is to search for optimum set of users that are assigned to the broadcasting radio access and the respective data rate for serving them. The simulations performed on a test bed show that it is possible to achieve even four to five times reduction in cost per item if we employ both infrastructures, compared to a simpler strategy that assumes the transmission to only one of them. This significant gain justify the need for centralized resource management of the cellular and broadcasting systems. We have identified also situations when this gain is not significant, hence centralized management is not needed. Both situations are possible in realistic environments.

Infrastructure Cost Benefits of Ambient Networks Multi-Radio Access

Ambient networks multi-radio access technology for efficient multi-operator multi-radio resource management can provide large advantages in terms of improved services to users, new business opportunities, and cost savings. This paper quantifies the potential infrastructure cost savings through a number of techno-economic infrastructure cost comparisons. The results indicate clear potential cost savings with integrated deployment in suburban and urban areas and additional cost savings with multi-operator cooperation when using the ambient networks multi-radio access technology

RRM for Filecasting Services in Hybrid DVB-H/3G+ Systems

This article investigates efficient broadcast delivery of file download (filecasting) services in hybrid broadcast and cellular systems formed by a DVB-H network and an evolved 3G+ cellular network with HSDPA and MBMS capabilities. In particular, we investigate the delivery cost savings that can be achieved using HSDPA and MBMS to repair errors of the initial DVB-H broadcast transmission. In a realistic scenario, there may be users that experience significantly worse DVB-H reception conditions than the majority, such that it may be more efficient to serve them through the cellular network. To enable an easy and efficient implementation of the repair mechanisms in the hybrid DVB-H/3G+ system, we adopt application layer forward error correction (AL-FEC) with Raptor coding. With AL-FEC specific packets are not required to be retransmitted, and repair transmissions consist of additional repair packets that can be used for all users. Hence, repair data can be seamlessly delivered with unicast HSDPA, multicast MBMS, and broadcast DVB-H transmissions. Furthermore, AL-FEC provides a multiburst protection of the DVB-H transmission to exploit the time diversity of the mobile broadcast channel.