A network service providing wireless channel information for adaptive mobile applications. I. Proposal

In this paper, we propose a network service that collects and processes PHY/MAC layer parameters for wireless channel conditions and provides them to adaptive mobile applications in clearly defined abstracted forms to aid them in their adaptation decision-making. This is to overcome one of the major hurdles in deploying powerful adaptive applications for mobile clients: lack of efficient access to wireless channel conditions. We put much of this burden on the proposed Wireless Channel Information (WCI) service so that applications and OS's do not have to access and process wireless PHY/MAC layer parameters that are often specific to wireless interface technologies. This approach is very effective for the upcoming 3G wide-area wireless networks, since a rich set of information on wireless channel conditions is already available in 3G networks, while their use of adaptive modulations creates highly variable channel performance. The WCI service is a network service provided by the wireless access network that communicates directly with adaptive mobile applications in the server network through standard protocols. The WCI service interfaces with various network elements in the wireless access network to collect parameters related to wireless channel conditions for a mobile device. Based on these parameters, the WCI service abstracts clearly defined values of parameters such as bandwidth and latency in formats that applications can use. These definitions are agreed or specified using RDF (Resource Description Framework) [19] or DTD (Document Type Definition) using XML standards. These results are dynamically communicated to adaptive applications in wired network to aid their adaptation decisions for mobile clients. A simple version of WCI service has been implemented.