Personal Communication Networks Research Articles

Social Network-Based Discriminatory Pricing Strategy

In this paper we study such pricing practices like MCI's Friends and Family Program that employ price discriminations on the basis of callers' social ties. We characterize a consumer's personal communication network by the number of strong and weak ties that the consumer has. We then derive a consumer's demand for communication service from the structure of the consumer's personal communication network. A monopoly firm's social network-based discriminatory pricing strategy consists of a menu of price plans, each plan targeting at one type of social networks. Our paper provides useful guidelines for the design of optimal social network-based discriminatory pricing strategies. We show that a firm may offer price discounts to communications between “friends and family members” in order to extract a larger profit from communications between callers with weak ties.

The cocial construction of mobile telephony: an application of the social influence model to perceptions and uses of mobile phones within personal communication networks

The purpose of this study was to test the argument that perceptions and uses of mobile phones are socially constructed in close personal networks. The study hypothesized that, through collective sense making, perceptions and uses of mobile phones would be more similar within 45 personal communication networks than for the entire sample of 194 individuals. Findings from a self-report survey reveal that several factors were significantly more similar within the networks than for individuals throughout the sample, including perceptions of the handset as a means of display, use for safety and security, attitudes about use in public, microcoordination, hypercoordination, and comfort with technology. Interviews were conducted to explore how perceptions and uses were shaped through relationships and interactions situated in social context. The interview data illuminate how social interaction contributed to perceptions and uses in four key areas: mobile phone adoption, attitudes about products and services, perceptions of non-normative use, and collective use. Results of the study serve as evidence supporting the argument that perceptions and uses of communication technologies are, at least in part, constructed socially among close personal contacts. This study demonstrates why it is important for researchers to consider social contacts and social contexts when examining the implications of communication technologies.

Talking about AIDS

This paper explores the significance of social relationships to two important stages in the process of sexual behavioral change in response to increased HIV/AIDS risk in rural Africa: the perceived risk of becoming HIV-infected through unprotected sexual intercourse and the preferred methods of protection either through sexual fidelity or through condom use. The empirical analyses are based on cross-sectional data from the Kenya Diffusion and Ideational Change Project (KDICP) which provides information about AIDS-related ego-centered communication networks of Kenyan men and women. The results show that perceived risks as well as preferred methods of protection against HIV-infection depend in general on the prevailing perceptions and favored protective methods within personal communication networks. However different influential network properties can be found. The risk-perceptions of women are shaped by strong relationships and cohesive network structures. Male’s risk perception depends more on the number of risk-perceivers in their communication networks. Heterogeneous relationships of various kinds are influential on women’s and men’s probability of favoring sexual faithfulness as a method of protection against HIV-infection. (authors)

Service profile replication scheme with local anchor for next generation personal communication networks

It is expected that per-user customized services are widely used in next generation Personal Communication Network. To provide personalized services for each call, per-user service profiles are frequently referenced and signaling traffic is considerably large. Since the service calls are requested from the places where user stays, we can expect that the traffic is localized. In this paper, we propose a new service profile replication scheme, named Follow-Me Replication with local Anchor (FMRA). By replicating user's service profile in a user-specific location area, local anchor of each region, the signaling traffic for call and mobility can be distributed to local network. We compared the performance of the FMRA with two typical schemes: Intelligent Network-based Central scheme and IMT-2000 based full replication scheme, as we refer it to Follow-Me Replication Unconditional (FMRU). Performance results indicate that FMRA lies between Central and FMRU schemes according to call to mobility ratio, and we identified the efficient ranges of CMR for FMRA depending on the various network parameters.

The Impact of Individual and Interpersonal Factors on Perceived News Media Bias

A large percentage of the public believes that the news media are biased, and the majority of these individuals consider the direction of bias to be against their own viewpoints. Past research has examined how individual factors such as strength of partisanship or extent of political involvement heighten bias perceptions, but little attention has been paid to interpersonal factors such as the ideological similarity or dissimilarity of personal communication networks. Results of a national survey show that perceptions of media bias were unrelated to the overall amount of discussion but were positively related to conversations with ideologically like–minded individuals. Moreover, the impact of conversations with similar others was stronger among Republicans than among Democrats, a finding consistent with recent work on news self–coverage of media bias claims.

Hierarchical Group Location Tracking for Transportation Systems inWireless Personal Communication Networks

A hierarchical group location tracking (HGLT) based on group location tracking and hierarchical location update is proposed to reduce the location management cost for terrestrial transportation systems (TSs) in personal communication networks. A global group location update (GGLU) and a local group location update (LGLU) are performed to provide an accurate position for a user. The GGLU informs a virtual visitor location register of the currently camped-on location area and the LGLU informs the serving mobile switching center of the currently camped-on cell. Although the LGLU is done each time a TS moves into a new cell, it causes small increment in the signaling cost due to localized updates and group updates compared with the previous group location tracking scheme. The proposed scheme significantly reduces the paging cost because the scheme pages only a camped-on cell using the LGLU information. Compared with the previous schemes, the HGLT reduces the location management cost, and it is more efficient as the cost for paging a cell increases.

HLR Replication Protocols for Global Mobility Management in PCS Networks

The new trend for PCS networks is to provide mobile users with large-scale mobile capability across many service areas. In this scenario, global database management for PCS networks has become an increasingly important research issue. In this paper, we examined two replicated database strategies, single-replica (SR) and multiple-replica (MR), for large-scale mobility of per-user data management in personal communication networks. The SR strategy uses a single replica approach of HLR. The MR strategy replicates the per-user data of HLR in many regions. The two strategies are based a partial replication scheme, and a primary copy method is used to maintain replicas' consistency. Our numerical results show that the MR strategy outperforms the SR strategy in most situations; however, it may be worse when the probability of a mobile user visiting a foreign region is high and the query rates from other foreign regions are low. Additionally, the number of replicas should be compact in the MR strategy in order to achieve a reasonable query response time. Therefore, we propose an adaptive multiple replication protocol to choose a suitable replication strategy and to decide the optimized number of replicas.

Polarisation synthesis and beam tilting using a dual port circularly polarised travelling wave antenna array

The paper describes the application of a dual port annular sector radiating line antenna (ANSERLIN) element, designed to provide a radiation bandwidth of 35% (1.7 GHz to 2.4 GHz) for a VSWR<1.5. A four-element array consisting of such elements is shown to provide more than 18° of beam tilt without the need for phase shifters. A method to reduce on-axis cross-polarisation in the circularly polarised array is also presented. In addition, it is shown how the array can be used to produce slant 45° linear polarisation. The resulting array can operate over the personal communication network (PCN) through universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) frequency bands, from 1.7 GHz to 2.2 GHz.

Providing multicast short message services over self-routing mobile cellular backbone network

The short message service (SMS), a bidirectional service for short alphanumeric (up to 160 bytes) messages, is a unique feature of GSM not found in older analog systems. Multireceiver short message traffic has increased amazingly over the years. We propose a multicast SMS architecture over our backbone network. Then, we demonstrate some approaches to maintain the SMS center location information consistent with the home location register and illustrate our scheme for mobile terminated short message transfer. Finally, we simulate and evaluate this architecture. Our simulation indicates that the proposed strong consistency approaches have optimal efficiency by adjusting parameters, and the proposed architecture efficiently provides self-routing capability and multicast functionality in our cellular backbone network. The study also provides a further insight on the issues of multicast wireless cellular backbone network and demonstrates a referable methodology to propose and analyze a multicast cellular backbone network, which can promote the technology of a personal communication network.

Evolutionary approach to optimize the assignment of cells to switches in personal communication networks

This paper proposes an evolutionary approach to solve the problem of assigning cells to switches in the planning phase of mobile cellular networks. Well-known in the literature as an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem, this problem requires the recourse to heuristic methods, which can practically lead to good feasible solutions, not necessarily optimal, the objective being rather to reduce the convergence time toward these solutions. Computational results obtained from extensive tests confirm the effectiveness of this approach to provide good solutions to problems of a certain size. This approach can be used to solve NP-hard problems, like designing and planning, in the next generation networking systems.

Dynamic channel reservation in satellite-based wireless personal communication networks

In low earth orbit (LEO) mobile satellite system, handoff is a prominent issue that originates from satellite constellation movement. For the purpose of quality of service provision, handoff is alw...

Dynamic channel reservation in satellite-based wireless personal communication networks

In low earth orbit (LEO) mobile satellite system, handoff is a prominent issue that originates from satellite constellation movement. For the purpose of quality of service provision, handoff is always intentionally protected to avoid call connection

Design and analysis of dynamic mobility tracking in wireless personal communication networks

In personal communication networks (PCN), mobility tracking provides the function of locating a mobile user within the service area. We propose an intersection-oriented dynamic location update (LU) strategy, which is designed to minimize the cost of mobility tracking by optimally partitioning the service area into location registration (LR) areas on a per-user basis. A realistic mobility model is proposed in which we consider not only the mobility behavior of the individual subscriber, but also the street layout. Based on this model, a transient Markov process is developed to analyze the tracking cost. To reduce the implementation cost and to make the proposed strategy feasible, the concept of mobile subscriber (MS) grouping, and equivalent quadrangular LR area are also adopted.

RF-system-on-package (SOP) for wireless communications

Anew industrial revolution, often called the “third wave” or information technology (IT), is in the making. The products of this revolution will require entirely different systems hardware technologies: those with multifunctions, such as digital, analog, RF, and optical circuitries. RF and microwave design and packaging have been established as key technologies of this revolution. The demand for increasingly higher rates of data, voice, and video drives RF technology to ever higher frequencies where bandwidth for channel capacity is easy to find. Such emerging high-performance applications as personal communication networks, wireless local-area networks (WLAN), and RF-optical networks have defined a trend toward more flexible and reconfigurable systems. They impose very stringent specifications never before reached in term of low noise, high linearity, low power consumption, small size and weight, and low cost. The RF front-end module is the foundation of these systems, and its integration poses a great challenge. Microelectronics technology, since the invention of the transistor, has revolutionized many aspects of electronic products. This integration and cost path has led the microelectronics industry to believe that this kind of progress can go on forever, leading to so-called “system-on-chip” (SOC) for all applications. But it is becoming clear that the production of a complete solution for the new wireless communication front-end is still a dream. When you consider the characteristics of an RF front-end module  high performance up to 100-GHz operating frequency  a large number of high-performance discrete passive components  design flexibility

A WDM-based PCN architecture

This paper proposes personal communication network (PCN) architecture based on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). By employing the broadcast nature of the WDM star couplers, the proposed architecture furnishes a very simple and fast hand off procedure. To overcome the wavelength offset conflict problem that might happen in this architecture when mobile terminal roams to a neighboring cell, a wavelength assignment scheme is also proposed. This scheme assigns the wavelength channels to the established connections, including the roaming ones, efficiently so that the wavelength offset conflict rate is kept as low as possible. Simulation results show that compared to the random assignment strategy, the proposed scheme furnishes a much better offset conflict rate.

Performance analysis of wireless ATM/AAL2 over a burst error channel

Recent growth in cellular networks has motivated research on broadband access technologies for the support of diverse services over wireless networks. Wireless asynchronous transfer mode (WATM) has been proposed as a transport solution for next generation wireless and personal communication networks and ATM adaptation layer 2 (AAL2) has been identified suitable for the support of low data rate and delay sensitive voice traffic generated in cellular networks. In this paper, we study the performance of AAL2 over a burst error wireless channel. Analytical expressions for performance measures of interest are derived for the Gilbert–Elliott channel and numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effect of burst errors on the AAL2 frame structure and the AAL2 performance.

A channel assignment scheme for SCM/WDM‐based personal communication network

AbstractAs the cover range for the radio cells becomes gradually smaller than before, the procedures for mobile terminals call setup and control become complicated due to the high handoff frequency. The broadcast nature of WDM star couplers makes the handoff scheme easier and reduces the number of reconnections. In this study, we proposed a channel allocation algorithm, called pre‐empted assigned offset (PAO) scheme, for the WDM‐ and SCM/WDM‐based PCN architectures. The main idea is to keep the offset conflict probability lower. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms those previously introduced schemes. Especially in offset conflict probability under a moderate roaming rate for WDM and even under heavy roaming situations for SCM/WDM. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Modeling and analysis of two-location algorithm with implicit registration in CDMA personal communication network

To track the location of a personal station (PS), the two-location algorithm (TLA) utilizes the previous and current registration areas (RAs). Unlike any other personal communication networks (PCNs), code division multiple access (CDMA) PCN imbeds an implicit registration function (IRF) which can infer PSs current location from the originating or incoming call. The TLA is expected to perform substantially better if the IRF is adopted. In this paper, we derive analytically the distribution of residence time in RA, and the mean number of registrations under the TLA integrated with the IRF (TLAI). Through comparative studies with the single location algorithm (SLA) and TLA, the TLAI is shown to give better performance in terms of the signaling cost for various call-to-mobility ratios (CMRs).

Group location tracking based on representative identity and virtual VLR for transportation systems

A location tracking scheme known as group location tracking (GLT) is proposed to reduce the location update cost for terrestrial transportation systems (TSs) in personal communication networks. When a TS moves into a new registration area, the GLT scheme, based on a representative identity of the TS and a virtual visitor location register, updates location information by a group location update request message instead of individual location update of users. Compared with the IS-41, the GLT scheme significantly reduces signaling load.

Personal Communication Networks and the Effects of an Entertainment-Education Radio Soap Opera in Tanzania

The personal networks of listeners and nonlisteners to an entertainment-education radio soap opera in Tanzania are examined to determine the effects of interpersonal discussion of the soap opera's educational themes of family planning and HIV prevention. Listeners are more likely to discuss these two educational issues in their personal communication networks and are also more likely to have other listeners to the radio program in their personal communication networks. Respondents demonstrate a relatively high degree of homophily with their network partners and are more likely to discuss matters arising from the radio program with their network partners who are of similar tribal membership, religious affiliation, and gender, and those who are equally or more highly educated than themselves.