Location-Based Network Resource Management

Abstract

The vision that wireless technology in the near future will provide mobile users with at least similar multimedia services as those available to the fixed hosts is quite established today. Towards this direction, extensive research efforts are underway to guarantee Quality-of-service (QoS) in mobile environments. An important factor that affects the provisioning of resources in such environments is the variability of the environment itself. From the user’s perspective, this variability is a direct consequence of the user’s movement and, at any given time, a function of his position. Exploiting the user’s location to optimally manage and provision the resources of the mobile network is likely to enhance both the capacity of the network and the offered quality of service. In this chapter, we aim to provide a general introduction to the emerging research area of mobile communications, which is generally known as location-based network resource management.

Key Terms in this Chapter

Positioning: The process of estimating the location of a moving object.

GPS: Global positioning system. A satellite-based system for estimating the location of a moving object.

Pre-Reservation: The process of reserving network resources for a specific user proactively (e.g., before the user actually needs them).

Admission Control: The process of restricting access to a system (e.g., network or application), based on certain criteria.

Network Resource Management: The process of manipulating resources of a network (e.g., bandwidth, storage, etc.), in order to improve the performance of the network.

Quality of Service (QoS): A term that refers to the quality of network services provided by a specific network.

Location-Aware: Consideration of the user’s location for performing various operations.

Handover or Handoff: The process by which a mobile’s terminal conversation is transferred from on Base Station to another, when the user is in motion.