Wireless LAN Hotspots Research Articles

Intrusion Detection System for Misbehaving WLAN Users

Wireless networks in the lives of people at work, at home, and in public places, plays a decisive role. Given the widespread demand for wireless networks, providers deploy wireless local area networks (WLAN) to provide access to broadband Internet Within the range of a public wireless LAN hotspot such as in airports or hotels, users can access their e-mails and browse the Internet either for free or, most often, against a fee. However, as the number of users rises, so does the risk that users may misbehave. Misbehaving users can to a large extent increase their share of bandwidth at the expense of other paid users by slightly modifying the driver of the network adapter. As the use of such networks grows, users will demand secure yet efficient, low-latency communications. Intruders’ detection is one of the key techniques that can be used to protect a network against outsiders. Many Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) have been designed for wired networks. Unfortunately, most of these IDSs do not give the expected results when used with wireless networks and are especially poor at addressing the Media Access Control (MAC) layer problem. In this sheet, we present the design and implementation of an IDS tool that is chosen for WLANs and addresses misbehavior at the MAC layer properly. Keywords: IDS, WLAN, MAC layer, Misbehavior

Resource Management in IEEE 802.11 Multiple Access Networks with Price-based Service Provisioning

In this paper we analyze the provisioning of multimedia services over a wireless LAN hot-spot, based on the IEEE 802.11 protocol. We address the issue of defining proper pricing strategies, from the perspective of both evaluating the technical performance and quantifying the economic revenues. We take into account a model for users' behavior that describes all users' choices in a decentralized manner, so that the transmission rate of each node is driven both by multimedia service requirements and by the customer's willingness to pay. The multiple users' medium access mechanism is studied through a simulation analysis based on ns-2. Within this model, the network performance is evaluated and discussed, presenting numerical results which can provide practical insight for pricing setup in a wireless LAN hot-spot. We observe that the impact of the pricing policy on the provider's income and on the satisfaction of the users is critical and especially depends on the shape of the pricing function (flat, linear or hybrid). Additionally, we investigate the provider's task of having a suitable price policy which properly tunes the tradeoff between the two contrasting factors of achieving high revenue and obtaining high satisfaction of the users.

IEEE 802.21 enabled mobile terminals for optimized WLAN/3G handovers

Wireless LAN hotspots are becoming widely spread. This, combined with the availability of new multi-mode terminals integrating heterogeneous technologies, opens new business opportunities for Mobile Operators. Scenarios in which 3G coverage is complemented by Wireless LAN deployments are becoming available. Therefore all IP based networks are ready to offer a new variety of services across heterogeneous access. However, to achieve this, some aspects still need to be analyzed. In particular, how and when to execute handovers in order to minimize service interruptions and maximize the use of the most appropriate technologies according to user's preferences (for example, a user may prefer to use a lower cost technology if available). This paper presents a simulation study of handover performance between 3G and Wireless LAN access networks. The mobile devices are based on the IEEE 802.21 cross layer architecture and use Wireless LAN signal level thresholds as handover criteria.

Self‐organised peering of wireless LAN hotspots

AbstractWe argue that access to wireless LAN (WLAN) hotspots can be shared in a peer‐to‐peer manner. In the hotspot‐sharing scheme that we propose, peers are encouraged to keep their residential WLANs open, offering Internet access to peers passing by. We call our scheme peer‐to‐peer wireless network confederation (P2PWNC). Payments in P2PWNC are only ‘in kind’. We are motivated by the widespread availability of wireless LAN equipments and the proliferation of residential broadband connections. P2PWNC enables unified wireless LAN roaming without central authorities and without the administrative overhead that is usually associated with such efforts. In this paper, we present and evaluate the decentralised design of P2PWNC. Copyright © 2005 AEIT.

Radio Resource Management with Utility and Pricing for Wireless LAN Hot-Spots

We investigate Wireless LAN hot-spots based on the IEEE 802.11b protocol, considering technical and economic issues of the Radio Resource Allocation. Firstly, we discuss how to model the trade-off between perceived QoS and paid price in the users' request, so as to represent the users as choosing the most satisfactory allocation, determined by service requirements and willingness to pay. After the setup of the users' requests, the multiple medium access mechanism is considered and the network performance is evaluated and discussed. Thus, we investigate the provider's task of having a suitable price policy which gives a satisfactory income and efficiently exploit network capacity. This is also dependent on a price setting that is accepted by the users and optimises resource usage. Finally, we study how the multiple access scheme specified in the IEEE 802.11b protocol combines users' requests to a final allocation, and identify possibilities of improvement for the inherent inefficiencies arising from overload.

Enabling location‐based services in wireless LAN hotspots

AbstractThe wide deployment of IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN (WLAN) makes possible application services developed in WLAN hotspots. Owing to the small cell size in WLAN hotspots, it is practical to develop location‐based services with the awareness of the WLAN access points (APs) that mobile devices currently access. In this paper, we propose an effective location determination technique using the inherent SNMP support in WLAN APs. It is shown that the current location of a mobile device can be determined from the SNMP traps sent by APs. Since the SNMP‐based approach doesn't need any particular software or hardware in mobile devices, location‐based services can be widely deployed, especially in public WLAN hotspots. To further enable location‐based services through the WWW, this paper also considers the location determination of a mobile device from its IP address, retrieved in a WWW environment. In addition, we propose a web service framework for location‐based services in WLAN hotspots. Thus, location‐based services can be developed in a standard way. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AirConn: A framework for tiered services in public wireless LAN hot spots

Access to the data services via wireless LANs at private and public hot spot sites is becoming commonplace. The goal of the airConn project is to define an architecture and a prototype implementation that enable the provision of premium and non-premium service tiers for both transient and nontransient users of wireless hot spots. airConn provides for dynamic renegotiation of service tiers and facilitates various billing modes. Thus, it enables service providers to increase their revenue opportunities via multiple flexibility manageable service offerings.

IEEE 802.11 roaming and authentication in wireless LAN/cellular mobile networks

A wireless LAN service integration architecture based on current wireless LAN hot spots is proposed so that migration to a new service becomes easier and cost effective. The proposed architecture offers wireless LAN seamless roaming in wireless LAN/cellular mobile networks. In addition, a link-layer-assisted mobile IP handoff mechanism is introduced to improve the network/domain switching quality in terms of handoff delay and packet loss. An application layer end-to-end authentication and key negotiation scheme is proposed to overcome the open-air connection problem existing in wireless LAN deployment. The scheme provides a general solution for Internet applications running on a mobile station under various authentication scenarios and keeps the communications private to other wireless LAN users and foreign network. A functional demonstration of the scheme is given. The research results can contribute to rapid deployment of wireless LANs.

Mobile Multimedia Services

Mobile multimedia has been a goal for technologists and the mobile industry alike for some time, but now many components are coming together to make mobile multimedia a reality — mobile data networks, devices with colour screens, multimedia content, etc. This paper reviews the vision for mobile multimedia and describes a roadmap for its deployment, beginning in the here and now with SMS-based services and culminating in 3G services complemented by wireless LAN hot-spots. Since mobile technology alone cannot realise mobile multimedia, later sections of this paper also consider the importance of appropriate business models, value chains and billing. Some challenges to mobile multimedia are also discussed and some potential solutions and developments that may help to overcome them.

Virtual operator based AAA in wireless LAN hot spots with ad-hoc networking support

Sound and effective authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) schemes for convenient and secure mobile wireless accesses are of great importance given the increased popularity and business opportunities in public wireless LAN hot spots. One possible scheme, which uses the mobile users' service providers as the single point of contact for all AAA transactions, is emerging as a very promising solution. We refer to such service providers as "virtual operators". In this paper, we discuss various existing virtual operator AAA solutions and present our solution that is entirely based on IP. By converging both the AAA process and data transmission at the IP layer, our solution is extremely flexible and extensible. Compared with existing solutions, it works across multiple air interfaces and is interoperable with wireless LAN cards from different vendors. Further, it supports the scenario where access points use intermediate mobile terminals and ad-hoc networking to extend their service coverage. Service credits can be properly assigned to these intermediate terminals as incentives for providing relay services. Our solution is especially useful for a public access LAN environment where multiple wireless access technologies, a diverse set of wireless products and different types of wireless operators may coexist to provide mobile users with convenient and comprehensive wireless access solutions.