Mobile Switching Research Articles

Mobile Soft Switch Traffic Prediction using Polynomial Neural Networks

This work investigates busy hour traffic demand pattern of mobile soft switch (MSS) over a period of two years and propose the application of Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) polynomial neural network for seven-days to three-month ahead busy hour (BH) traffic forecasting for effective optimization of network resources. Busy hour call attempt (BHCA) utilization and A-interface utilization key performance indicators (KPI) are used as inputs into GMDH prediction model and BH traffic as model target. The performance of the model was evaluated based on three statistical performance indices: mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), root mean square percentage error (RMSPE) and goodness of fit (R2) values. Experimental results show that R2 value as high as 96% was achieved with the proposed model for both short-term and mid-term forecasting. The GMDH model proves an effective tool for accurate prediction of traffic demand and hence, proper optimization of GSM/GPRS MSS network resources.

A new green energy interface for telecommunications

ABSTRACTProviding electricity to telecom tower can be realised by hybrid green energy systems than extending a power line from grid. For a hybrid energy system, it is important to develop a converter to integrate different power sources and storage elements. Conventional systems use an individual converter for individual source thus leading to a relatively complex configuration, larger component count and reduced system efficiency. To address these issues green energy interface (GEI) converter is used. In this paper, a detailed component wise analysis and performance comparison between conventional and GEI converter using Matlab/Simulink is presented. GEI converter has linear and non-linear components. So, small signal model based on state space averaged model of the GEI topology is obtained. A lab level prototype for the GEI converter with programmable interface controller is implemented and tested under various input conditions to study the performance of the converter during seasonal changes. The simulation and experimental results showed that effective operation and control strategy of the hybrid power supply system.Abbreviations: BTS: base transceiver station; MSC: mobile switching centre; BSC: base station controller; CAPEX: capital expenditure; OPEX: operational expenditure; GEI: green energy interface

A Novel Handoff Necessity Estimation Approach Based on Travelling Distance

<p><em>Mobility management is one of the most important challenges in Next Generation Wireless Networks (NGWNs) as it enables users to move across geographic boundaries of wireless networks. Nowadays, mobile communications have heterogeneous wireless networks offering variable coverage and Quality of Service (QoS). The availability of alternatives generates a problem of occurrence of unnecessary handoff that results in wastage of network resources. To avoid this, an efficient algorithm needs to be developed to minimize the unnecessary handoffs. Conventionally, whenever Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) connectivity is available, the mobile node switch from cellular network to wireless local area network to gain maximum use of high bandwidth and low cost of wireless local area network as much as possible. But to maintain call quality and minimum number of call failure, a considerable proportion of these handovers should be determined. Our algorithm makes the handoff to wireless local area network only when the Predicted Received Signal Strength (PRSS) falls below a threshold value and travelling distance inside the wireless local area network is larger than a threshold distance.Through MATLAB simulation, we show that our algorithm is able to improve handover performance.<strong> </strong></em></p>

On spatially disjoint lightpaths in optical networks

The core network in the information communication technology infrastructure is based on the optical fiber technology. The core network is of prime importance because it connects all the central offices in the wired communication networks and the mobile switching centers in the wireless communication networks. The optical link between two network nodes is a lightpath, which offers very high speed, low loss, lower cost, highly reliable, secure and very high capacity, end-to-end communication over a very long distance. Any damage to a lightpath in the event of a disaster may lead to massive service interruptions and financial losses for the network operators. Therefore, survivable routing in these networks is very important. Generally, the survivability is ensured by having a backup lightpath to keep communication intact because the primary and the backup light paths are always disjoint. However, they may still fail simultaneously in the event of a large-scale disaster, if their separation distance in the physical plane is small. Hence, the spatial distance between the disjoint lightpaths should also be taken into consideration when establishing the lightpaths. Our contributions in this paper are twofold: (1) a routing algorithm is proposed for provisioning a pair of link-disjoint lightpaths between two network nodes such that their minimum spatial distance (while disregarding safe regions) is maximized, and (2) another routing algorithm is proposed for provisioning a pair of link-disjoint lightpaths such that the path weight of the primary lightpath is minimized, subject to the constraint that the backup lightpath has some particular geographical distance from the primary lightpath. Through extensive simulations, we show that our first algorithm can provide maximum survivability against spatial-based simultaneous link failures (due to the maximized spatial distance), whereas the second algorithm can tune the spatial distance between the lightpaths keeping in view the target survivability requirements and the path weight for the primary lightpath.

QUEUEING MODEL FOR SOFT HANDOFF ANALYSIS IN CDMA BASED WIRELESS CELLULAR NETWORK

The most important feature of the mobile network is mobility. Good and continuous service in cellular mobile network can be achieved by using the procedure of handoff (or handover) from one cell to another. Soft handoff is very important feature of cellular Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system. In CDMA system a mobile stations (MSs) within a soft handoff region use multiple radio channels and receive their signals from multiple base stations simultaneously. In CDMA cellular system, all cells can also share the same frequency. During handoff procedure, the signaling and voice information from multiple base stations are combined at the mobile switching center (MSC). During the handoff procedure, voice and signaling information must be sent to multiple base stations and the mobile station must combine the results. Within the overlapping area (which is developed by the adjacent cells) of cells, a handset can connect to multiple base stations. In this research paper, a new soft handoff scheme for CDMA cellular network is proposed and investigated. Here we introduce the concept of overlap region between adjacent cells and develop an analytical model for soft handoff in CDMA system. In developed soft handoff model, the balking and reneging behaviors of handoff calls have also considered. Different performance measures of the soft handoff model have developed.

Consumer decisions to repair mobile phones and manufacturer pricing policies: The concept of value leakage

Mobile phones have become ‘essential-to-have’ devices for information-gathering and social communication. They are being technologically advanced, while they are readily available at affordable prices. This motivates consumers to upgrade their mobile phones more frequently. Given these considerations and the lack of accessible repair services, mobile phones have a relatively short life span. The underuse of mobile phones, despite the fact that they are made durable, may result in losses or value leakage. In this study, a probabilistic approach is proposed to quantify the value leakage that may occur due to consumer’s decision to not repair broken mobile phones and simply replace them with new ones. A group of 208 mobile phone users has been surveyed to capture consumer’s time-dependent willingness-to-pay for repair services. Then, consumer’s repair behavior is combined with manufacturer’s repair service pricing strategies to calculate the probability of repair or replacement decisions over the life span of mobile phones. Finally, the total expected leakage risk is derived for both consumers and manufacturers. For illustrative purposes, it is shown that a manufacturer may lose up to 331 million dollars over a period of five years due to consumers’ decisions to not repair their cracked-screen mobile phones and switch to another brand.

A Novel Handoff Necessity Estimation Approach Based on Travelling Distance

Mobility management is one of the most important challenges in Next Generation Wireless Networks (NGWNs) as it enables users to move across geographic boundaries of wireless networks. Nowadays, mobile communications have heterogeneous wireless networks offering variable coverage and Quality of Service (QoS). The availability of alternatives generates a problem of occurrence of unnecessary handoff that results in wastage of network resources. To avoid this, an efficient algorithm needs to be developed to minimize the unnecessary handoffs. Conventionally, whenever Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) connectivity is available, the mobile node switch from cellular network to wireless local area network to gain maximum use of high bandwidth and low cost of wireless local area network as much as possible. But to maintain call quality and minimum number of call failure, a considerable proportion of these handovers should be determined. Our algorithm makes the handoff to wireless local area network only when the Predicted Received Signal Strength (PRSS) falls below a threshold value and travelling distance inside the wireless local area network is larger than a threshold distance.Through MATLAB simulation, we show that our algorithm is able to improve handover performance.

Fuzzy Based Network Assignment and Link‐Switching Analysis in Hybrid OCC/LiFi System

In recent times, optical wireless communications (OWC) have become attractive research interest in mobile communication for its inexpensiveness and high‐speed data transmission capability and it is already recognized as complementary to radio‐frequency (RF) based technologies. Light fidelity (LiFi) and optical camera communication (OCC) are two promising OWC technologies that use a photo detector (PD) and a camera, respectively, to receive optical pulses. These communication systems can be implemented in all kinds of environments using existing light‐emitting diode (LED) infrastructures to transmit data. However, both networking layers suffer from several limitations. An excellent solution to overcoming these limitations is the integration of OCC and LiFi. In this paper, we propose a hybrid OCC and LiFi architecture to improve the quality‐of‐service (QoS) of users. A network assignment mechanism is developed for the hybrid system. A dynamic link‐switching technique for efficient handover management between networks is proposed afterward which includes switching provisioning based on user mobility and detailed network switching flow analysis. Fuzzy logic (FL) is used to develop the proposed mechanisms. A time‐division multiple access (TDMA) based approach, called round‐robin scheduling (RRS), is also adopted to ensure fairness in time resource allocation while serving multiple users using the same LED in the hybrid system. Furthermore, simulation results are presented taking different practical application scenarios into consideration. The performance analysis of the network assignment mechanism, which is provided at the end of the paper, demonstrates the importance and feasibility of the proposed scheme.

Why Do Users Switch Mobile Applications? Trialing Behavior as a Predecessor of Switching Behavior

Mobile application providers face high user losses because users can easily and often switch to an alternative application. Researchers have recently started to study information technology (IT) switching. However, no studies have concentrated on the unique context of mobile applications. Mobile application switching differs from the switching behavior related to many other IT products and services because of the highlighted role of alternatives, beta versions, updates, reviews, and users’ spontaneous behavior. To address this gap, we develop a mobile-specific model by using a qualitative research approach. As a theoretical contribution, we introduce trialing behavior as a predecessor of switching behavior and present six new behavioral antecedents for them. As practical implications, we suggest ways for mobile application providers and developers to reduce user churn.

Minimising network cost by employing sliding window method at mobile switching centres in GSM network

The cost effort of a global system for mobile communications (GSM) network is to be minimised for meeting effectively and efficiently the service requirements of ever increasing mobile subscriber's base. The period of temporary storage of subscribers' profiles in visitor location register (VLR) at a mobile switching centre (MSC) affects the cost of GSM network. This research study proposes a sliding window method for determining the storage period of profiles in VLR that minimises the network cost of GSM network. Further, this study examined and evaluated the computational efforts on proposed method. The proposed method proves to be better than the reported set intersection method.

Minimising network cost by employing sliding window method at mobile switching centres in GSM network

The cost effort of a global system for mobile communications (GSM) network is to be minimised for meeting effectively and efficiently the service requirements of ever increasing mobile subscriber's base. The period of temporary storage of subscribers' profiles in visitor location register (VLR) at a mobile switching centre (MSC) affects the cost of GSM network. This research study proposes a sliding window method for determining the storage period of profiles in VLR that minimises the network cost of GSM network. Further, this study examined and evaluated the computational efforts on proposed method. The proposed method proves to be better than the reported set intersection method.

Benefits of mobile end user network switching and multihoming

Mobile users have not been able to exploit spatio-temporal differences between individual mobile networks operators for a variety of reasons. End user network switching and multihoming are two promising mechanisms that could allow such exploitation. However these mechanisms have not been thoroughly explored at a general system level with QoE metrics. Therefore, in this work we analyze these mechanisms in a variety of diverse scenarios through a system level model based on an agent based modeling framework.In terms of results, we find that in all scenarios end user network switching provides significant benefits in terms of both throughput and mean opinion score as the number of available networks increases. However, contrastingly, end user multihoming in most scenarios does not provide significant benefits over network switching given the same number of available networks. The major reason is inefficient radio resource allocation resulting from individual networks not taking the multihoming nature of end users into account. Though, in low user density situations this inefficiency is not a problem and multihoming does provide increased throughput though not increased mean opinion scores. Finally, scenarios that vary the fraction of users adopting multihoming suggests that both early and late adopters will have similar gains over users not adopting multihoming. Thus the adoption dynamics of multihoming appear favorable. Overall, the results support the applicability of end user network switching for improving mobile user experience and the applicability of end user multihoming in more limited situations.

Exterior foam drainage and flow regime switch in the foams

The three-dimensional flow in exterior microscale foams including the Plateau borders and nodes are investigated by solving Navier-stoke and continuity equations. First, we show the effect of the interfacial mobility and film thickness on the dimensionless mean velocity of the exterior foams. The velocity of the exterior node-PB is similar to the velocity of single exterior Plateau border. Next, we calculated the pressure difference of each element separately and obtained their hydraulic resistances. We found out that the hydraulic resistance of the exterior Plateau border is always larger than the hydraulic resistance of the exterior node, resulting in a consistent channel-dominated regime. However, For the interior foams, there is a value of interfacial mobility where the node’s resistance overcomes the channel’s resistance, resulting in a switch from the channel-dominated regime to a node-dominated regime. This switching point is dependent on the relative length of the channels. Hence, we obtained an approximation of the interfacial mobility switching points versus the relative length of channels. Moreover, in a form of approximation master curve, we showed the dependence of mean velocities of foams and channels’ hydraulic resistances to a dimensionless combined parameter of Λ-1 that contains interfacial mobility and film thickness together. For both the exterior and interior nodes, the velocity and hydraulic resistance are almost constant for various Boussinesq numbers since interfacial mobility has a marginal effect on node’s flow.

Applying push-pull-mooring to investigate channel switching behaviors: M-shopping self-efficacy and switching costs as moderators

Abstract The push-pull-mooring model was applied in this study to investigate consumer channel switching intention related to physical and mobile stores. Push effects include mobile information search behavior (with the perceived benefit and cost of search as antecedents) and perceived value (with perceived service quality and perceived price as antecedents) of products and services obtained at a physical store. Pull effects were consumers’ evaluations of the mobile store attractiveness (with mobile characteristics and perceived quality of mobile store as antecedents). Additionally, mobile shopping self-efficacy and switching cost were hypothesized as the mooring effects that intervene in the push and pull effects. A total of 403 valid questionnaires were collected from Taiwanese m-shopping consumers, and structural equation modeling was adopted for quantitative analysis and hypotheses testing. The results indicated that push and pull effects have direct impacts on switching intention, with the exception of the perceived cost of the search. Mooring effects, including m-shopping self-efficacy, procedural and relational switch costs, have a varying degree of moderating effect on the information search behavior, perceived value, mobile store attractiveness and switch intention. This study concluded that retailers should pay more attention to raising consumer value on both physical and mobile channels to diversify their businesses. This not only offers more channel options for consumers to come into contact with retailers (cross-channel retention), but also prevents consumer cross-channel free-riding behavior, and ultimately reduce switching to other retailers.

Mobility and Clinic Switching Among Postpartum Women Considered Lost to HIV Care in South Africa

Retention in HIV care, particularly among postpartum women, is a challenge to national antiretroviral therapy programs. Retention estimates may be underestimated because of unreported transfers. We explored mobility and clinic switching among patients considered lost to follow-up (LTFU). Observational cohort study. Of 788 women initiating antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy at 6 public clinics in Johannesburg, South Africa, 300 (38.1%) were LTFU (no visit ≥3 months). We manually searched for these women in the South African National Health Laboratory Services database to assess continuity of HIV care. We used geographic information system tools to map mobility to new facilities. Over one-third (37.6%) of women showed evidence of continued HIV care after LTFU. Of these, 67.0% continued care in the same province as the origin clinic. Compared with those who traveled outside of the province for care, these same-province "clinic shoppers" stayed out-of-care longer {median 373 days [interquartile range (IQR): 175-790] vs. 175.5 days (IQR: 74-371)} and had a lower CD4 cell count on re-entry [median 327 cells/μL (IQR: 196-576) vs. 493 cells/μL (IQR: 213-557). When considering all women with additional evidence of care as engaged in care, cohort LTFU dropped from 38.1% to 25.0%. We found evidence of continued care after LTFU and identified local and national clinic mobility among postpartum women. Laboratory records do not show all clinic visits and manual matching may have been under- or overestimated. A national health database linked to a unique identifier is necessary to improve reporting and patient care among highly mobile populations.

Nonlinearity and chaos in wireless network traffic

The natural complexity of wireless mobile network traffic dynamics has been assessed in this article by tracing the presence of nonlinearity and chaos in the profile of daily peak hour call arrival and daily call drop of a sub-urban local mobile switching centre. The tools like Recurrence Plot and Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) has been used to reveal the probable presence of non-stationarity, nonlinearity and chaosity in the network traffic. Information Entropy (IE) and 0–1 test have been employed to provide the quantitative support to the findings. Both the daily peak hour call arrival profile and the daily call drop profile exhibit non-stationarity, determinism and nonlinearity with the former one being more regular while the later one is chaotic.

The study on negative eWOM and its relationship to consumer’s intention to switch Mobile Service Provider

Recent developments in social media has transformed consumer-brand trust relationship into consumer-consumer trust engagement where consumers make similar brand choices influenced by the opinion of other consumers. Consumers establish online networks and conversations embedded in trust, on similar tastes, viewpoints, preferences and other types of brand affinity behaviours. These online consumer conversations across multiple social media platforms contributes to voluminous electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). An average of 70% of consumers look out for other consumers’ opinions on a brand to learn more about the products or services of interest and out of this consumer generated contents, a whopping 50% are consumer grouses or complaints. This study identifies emerging key mobile service consumption elements highlighted by consumers in discussion thread revolving a viral, negative eWOM through qualitative method of netnography. The study findings include eWOM contains multiple and relevant consumer behavioural contextual elements that may be leveraged upon to understand how negative eWOM influences mobile consumer switching intentions in Malaysia.

Research on Access Control and Encryption Transmission of 6LoWPAN

Based on research about network mobility, this paper analyzes the security requirements of internet of things and wireless network based on 6LoWPAN, and designs the security architecture based on 6LoWPAN network, especially for the frequent mobile handoff access and data multi-hop forwarding. The access authentication scheme and data encryption method are designed and implemented based on 6LoWPAN mobile switching. Through comparing with non-symmetric encryption and symmetric encryption, AES pre-shared key encryption scheme is determined to use for 6LoWPAN, and is compared with typical cryptographic algorithms on internet of things platform and Contiki operate system. In experiment, the lightweight security of IoT mobile communication is realized on CC2530 nodes, including the advanced encryption standard, the payload encryption of network data packet and wireless nodes access authentication. Security architecture for mobile switching scenarios are verified, the feasibility of proposed scheme is confirmed.

Analysis of Signal Intelligence for Wireless Communication Systems

This paper deals about developing things that could be done with signal intelligence of wireless communication systems. It is mainly focused on connection drop problems. Most of people in this generation are using different types of mobile devices for various purposes. Here mobile means anything in motion. Now-a-days we experience lot of increase in data traffic during signal transmission between networks. The drop-connection problems and data losses are common. The situation has been improved from this decade. We still facing big problems in network hardware & managing traffic. Hence, we need to smartly manage traffic, data load and rectify errors in hardware systems in transmitter, receiver. Keywords: MSC - Mobile Switching Center; BTS - Base Transceiver Station; LTE - Long Term Evolution

Performance evaluation of mobile communication system with reliability measures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate performance of mobile communication system with reliability measures. Design/methodology/approach – The mobile communication system consists of a mobile station (MS), base transceiver station (BTS), base station controller (BSC) and the mobile switching center. The MS is connected to BTS, BTS is connected to BSC and BSC is connected with the mobile switching system. With the help of these stations working, the authors have developed a mathematical model using Markovian approach. Findings – Using the supplementary variable technique, the Laplace transformations and Markov process theory, the reliability indices of the mobile communication system are determined. Originality/value – In the present work, the authors have developed a mathematical model based on a mobile communication system.