Protocols for Open Access Wireless Deployment

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate a new paradigm for wireless network services. The motivations for this project are the f ollowing: (1) Today, wireless service is either local to an institution (as in wireless LANs) or is provided as part of a regional or national service (as in cellular). But there could be other models. Individual providers of wireless service could put up a base station and o er service locally. Users could move among these providers and select a service based on requirements and prices. Just as we have over 5000 wireline Internet service providers today, many only serving a small area, we could have wireless coverage built bottom up. (2)Today, we see a restricted range of wireless devices - a laptop PC with a wireless card, a cell phone augmented with data capabilities, a highly integrated device such as a pager. There is not an open market for new wide-area wireless devices, because such devices today are tightly bound, both technically and through service contract, to a particular wireless service provider. But there could be a wide range of new consumer devices if the proper interfaces and modules were available. For this to work, two things are necessary. First, each of the broad mix of competing wireless services must be accessible to a wide variety of devices. What is needed is an overall system architecture that allows cheap, small, low-power consumer-level objects to access a wide variety of technically incompatible wireless services with ease, using open interfaces. Second, selection of a service among competing alternatives must be easy. For example, a manual process of selection and entry of a credit card would be too burdensome to succeed. What is needed is a model for automated dynamic negotiation, based on rules provided by the users and providers, together with a workable economic model and a simple micro-payment scheme. The goal of this research is to demonstrate two related innovations. The irst is a framework for automated negotiation for access to wireless services. The second is a small hardware device that the user can carry, a personal router, which contains the necessary wireless transceivers, implements the access negotiation protocol, and provides a network connection for the other devices and appliances that a person might choose to carry. By creation of an open interface between this personal router and other devices a user might carry, an environment can be created for the development of new devices and applications. The intellectual merit of this project is embodied in: a) the automated service negotiation framework, b) experience with systems that use policy constraints to guide automatic configuration; c) the related protocols for security and billing; d) the demonstration of the new application user interface paradigms implied by the personal router; and e) identification and definition of the interfaces between this device and the other consumer devices that can be connected to the Internet using it. The broader impacts are the possibility of creating a new market model or wireless service, based on small business investment and local competition, rather than service provision (only) by large, national-level corporations, and the development of an increased understanding of user pricing preference for communication services. Research that explores technology supporting alternative economic models is not likely to be done in private industry, and is thus especially appropriate for public-sector support.