A View From the Tip of the Wireless Iceberg

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A View From the Tip of the Wireless Iceberg

• Dr. Ronald R. Hutchins
• Associate Vice Provost for Research and
  Technology and Chief Technology Officer, Georgia
  Institute of Technology

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Networking/Wireless at Ga TechA Context

• Internet
• Internet 2/SoX
• NLR/SLR
• LAWN
• Local Area Wireless and Walkup Network
• Applications Task Force - integration of
  Applications over Cellular, Wi-Fi, wired

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LAWN stats

• Started in 1999
• Captive portal authentication w/static WEP
• gt850 Access Points (1000 by year end)
• gt80 buildings covered
• gt50 of students use regularly
• Commercial network (FASTPASS)

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The Stuff

• LAWN
• GPS Bus tracking via google maps
• Bus hotspot via Wi-Fi and GPRS
• UMTS rollout on campus
• IMS apps platform
• Research contract with Cingular
• Connecting _at_ L2 with cell towers
• Telecom project on campus - not VoIP today
• Cellular PBX model ???

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Wireless Futures

• Flattening of voice revenues, growth in cellular
  data and sales/services.
• Cellular and VoIP combining to impact traditional
  land lines.
• Reclaimed and Unlicensed frequencies.
• WiMax on the horizon - a converged wireless?

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Beyond Wireless

• Presence
• location based services
• seamless mobility
• sessions
• multi-homing
• Convergence (services hw)
• Identity management
• Security

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Why these things are challenging

• human interaction
• commercial constraints
• Open -vs- closed
• privacy/trust

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Presence

• Chat context
• Who is asking the question
• For what purpose
• virtual presence in the absence of physical
  presence

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LBS

• Augmenting my services with information about
  where I am, where I am headed, and where my
  friends and colleagues are.

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Mobility

• Not just between cell-phone towers but between
  different technologies cell, wi-fi, wired
• Able to take advantage of the best service
  currently available.
• The "affordances" ideas (Jeff Pierce GT-GVU) -- a
  screen, printer or keyboard that is close by and
  usable

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Converged Services

• Services converging and crossing networks
• voice as another data service
• data - messaging, imaging becoming as important
  as voice

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Device Convergence

• Voice/video/text communications, media player,
  camera, web
• single purpose device (iPod) -vs- a multipurpose
  one (Treo)
• Devices will pool resources - not all will
  require all forms of wireless
• Small form factor wireless devices are quickly
  becoming the dominant computing platformand as a
  result, the device for students to program

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Identity Management

• Who am I?
• a phone number?
• a IP address?
• a email address?
• a secret password?
• a hidden code on a chip or magnetic stripe?
• a fingerprint or DNA sequence?
• All of these have problems - We need this for two
  reasons
• How will others find me?
• How will they trust that it's really me?

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The Black Ice

• Security continues to be a major problem with
  wireless, what does security mean?
• Impersonation, interception of voice/data
  streams, tracking of inappropriate behavior,
  denial of services, propagation of viruses, etc.
• How do we continue to grow services in the face
  of these growing challenges?
• Security is not just a network problem, it must
  become everyones problem, but more specifically
  the customer must be cognizant and take action to
  protect content, identity, and property.