I.G.M.M. Niemegeers

From Personal Area Networks to Personal Networks: A User Oriented Approach

This paper introduces Personal Networks (PN), a new concept related to the emerging field of pervasive computing that extends the concept of a Personal Area Network (PAN). The latter refers to a space of small coverage (less than 10 m) around a person where ad-hoc communication occurs, typically between portable and mobile computing devices such as laptops, Personal Digital Assistants, cell phones, headsets and digital gadgets. We envision a PN to have a core consisting of a PAN, which is extended on-demand and in an ad-hoc fashion with personal resources or resources belonging to others. This extension will physically be made via infrastructure networks, e.g., the Internet, an organisations intranet, or a PAN belonging to another person, a vehicle area network, or a home network. The PN is configured to support the application and takes into account context- and location information. The resources, which can become part of a PN, will be very diverse. These resources can be private or may have to be shared with other people. They may be free or one may have to pay for their usage. They can be physically close or far away. In this paper, we discuss a number of challenging research problems and potential directions for solutions. Specifically we address the architecture of PNs, techniques for resource and environment discovery, self-organisation, routing, co-operation with fixed infrastructures, and security and accounting.

DVB-H - UMTS Integration at Radio Access Level

The provision of one-to-many multimedia services to mobile users over scarce wireless resources has to be performed in a cost-efficient way. In addition to various systems optimized for this type of service, such as DVB-H, UMTS was recently enhanced for support of multimedia broadcast and multicast services (MBMS) over the existing infrastructure. Since MBMS provision will reduce the UMTS capacity for its essential point-to-point services, the integration of UMTS and DVB-H may be beneficial. In this paper, we address the integration of DVB-H at the UMTS radio access level. We present an interworking architecture and discuss necessary modifications to UMTS.

Personal Wireless Communications

The size of the internet will increase with the mainstream adoption of the broadband mobility connecting a myriad of devices and sensors at homes and businesses and the use of IPv6. All this will add to the spatio-temporal complexity of the network topology and dynamics. We present a brief overview of the role that self-organization can play in this new era of complexity. Issues of QoS, scalability, robustness, and reachability, among others (e.g., heterogeneity) will dominate the research in the future. First, we present the definition, scope, and applicability of self-organization. Then we briefly articulate the need for selforganization, and some recent breakthrough advances in this emerging area of research. This is followed by some nearand long-term scenarios where self-organization can be applied, and some results that we have obtained. We conclude the talk with a discussion on the key challenges that lie ahead. I. Niemegeers and S. Heemstra de Groot (Eds.): PWC 2004, LNCS 3260, p. 1, 2004. c