Introduction to Mobile and Wireless Technology

1
Introduction to Mobile and Wireless Technology

• Justin Champion
• (Module Leader)
• 3292 JJC1_at_staffs.ac.uk

2
Content

• What we will look at
• Teaching Team
• Assessment

3
Course

• This course will look at the uses of Mobile and
  Wireless Technology
• For the most part we will avoid the detailed
  looks at the technologies
• These are covered in the module Fundamentals of
  Mobile Computing in Level 2
• Instead we will discuss the different
  technologies and discuss the uses of the
  technology
• Why are companies investing such large amounts of
  money?
• In the UK alone the 3G cellular licenses the
  operators spent 22,477,400,000
  (http//www.3g-generation.com/license_uk.htm)
• Just purchasing the frequency without any
  hardware or infrastructure!
• Official Government research before the auction
  predicted a value of just 1,500,000,000
  (http//www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/01
  -02/0102233.pdf, 2001)

4
Lectures

• The lectures will look at the principals Mobile
  computing looking at three different areas
• The technologies which are common at the moment
• The possible business and personal uses of these
• The consideration of screen design when creating
  something for a mobile device rather than a
  desktop

5
Tutorials

• The tutorials will be used to enhance what you
  will do in the lectures
• Two specific Items will be taught in the
  tutorials
• Both of these will be used in the assignment
• Microsoft Compact Framework .NET
• There will be no programming
• This is used purely as a design medium to allow
  you to put into practice what Clive has discussed
  about design principles
• Compact framework is normally used for
  programming of Windows for Mobile based devices
• OPNET network simulation environment
• This will be used to look at network simulations
• Looking at the creation and testing of a network
  before any expense or time has been wasted on
  creating the network.
• We will look at both wired and wireless networks
  using this tool using a number of scenarios.

6
Material

• All of the material
• Will be placed on Blackboard
• It will also be mirrored on the following website
• www.fcet.staffs.ac.uk/jjc1
• Additional Reading
• There are a large number of books in the library
  on mobile technology
• Most of these will go into a lot of technical
  details about the technology
• All of the material which we can find and is
  useful on the web will be put into the website
  and the lecture material
• Please remember though when reading web material
  with some of the technologies there are
  international differences in how they operate

7
The Possible market

• The potential for the market place
• 2.8 Billion users have a mobile phone,
  (http//www.gsmworld.com/news/statistics/pdf/gsma_
  stats_q1_07.pdf, 2007)
• Consider this is a market place
• As a basic starting point all of these devices
  will be paying to connect to the phone network
• Now you can start to offer these users services
• Which they will pay for even in the smallest ways
• We will look at this further in the course
• In addition to this there are wireless devices,
  in increasing numbers

8
Why look at this area at all ?

• The field of mobile computing is growing
• New technologies are being released and specified
  at a very regular rate.
• Unlike wired networks which have fixed on a
  particular technology for the most part wireless
  networks have not
• There are a large number of technologies each of
  which is intended for a specific usage scenario.
• There is NO single wireless/mobile technology
  which is good for all environments
• There are designed for a type of usage and they
  are good at that

9
Why look at this area at all ?

• The growth in the technologies is increasing
• New usage scenarios are being developed at a very
  fast rate
• The number of air interface technologies is also
  increasing
• The only consideration is though how many
  technologies can your device support ?
• If your device is a laptop then it is just a
  matter of a new USB connector and driver software
• But what about a Personal Digital Assistant or a
  phone (PDA) which can not easily be expanded ?
• Throw it away and buy a new one ?

10
Teaching Team

• Justin Champion
• Module Leader
• Clive Chandler
• Carolin Bauer
• Khawar Hameed

11
Assessment

• The course assessment is broken into two parts
• One examination which is to be done in the normal
  university examination period
• 50 of the overall grade
• One piece of course work to be worked on in the
  tutorials and in your self study time
• 50 of the overall grade

12
Lectures

• Initial Lecture Schedule

13
Assessment

• Tutorials
• There will be spare time in the tutorials for you
  to work on your assignment
• The problem is that OPNET is only installed in a
  limited number of labs K106 and K103
• Outside of this time it will be difficult to gain
  access to the lab
• As you will soon appreciate it can sometimes be
  time consuming for a network simulation to run
• With real world scenarios it is not unusual for a
  simulation to run for several days
• Simulating just a few minutes of real world data

14
Feedback

• Please do feedback on the course during the
  course !
• If there is a problem then we need to know about
  it early
• Please do feedback to any of the tutors for the
  course if there is a problem
• It is quite usual that something that one person
  is having a problem with
• So is everyone else they just do not want to say
  it

15
What do WE want out of the course

• In the end
• I hope that you understand some of the mobile and
  wireless technologies
• And how these fit with each other
• What uses are they
• Understand some of the reasons why business are
  investing such large amounts in the technology
• Why they are installing the techs and benefits
• Understand the basics of the HCI considerations
• Why these are a concern for applications
• Why these are a concern for the devices themselves