Mobile Computing

The desire and the necessity for accessing and processing information stored in computer networks "anytime and anywhere" has been the impetus for the growing interest in mobile computing research. Wired computing networks and end devices such as PCs and workstations have effectively extended data-only networking capability of a few years ago to sophisticated multimedia networking. The cost of such transformation to the end user turns out to be very nominal. Undoubtedly the wireless access technology has given a big boost to mobile cellular telephony and data networking. Processing general purpose multimedia information requires, besides higher bandwidth, means for controlling the available bandwidth and caring for quality of service issues. This problem is accentuated by the need for providing such service in the presence of wireless physical layer and host mobility. Thus, tetherless and ubiquitous mobile and wireless computing systems should carefully combine advances in computer networking and wireless communication.
While several experimental mobile computing platforms have sprung up, much research is needed to overcome technological obstacles in low power system design, sustainable battery life, unreliability and limited bandwidth of the wireless channel. This text addresses some aspects of this growing field of research. A total of eight papers span the areas of protocols, network architecture, and performance issues. All of the papers deal with the complexities of host mobility in a wireless setting. They expose several challenges that affect system design of mobile computing networks at various levels. By addressing these challenges in an efficient and cost effective manner, it is hoped that user friendly, seamless and faster networks will emerge to serve the sophisticated and demanding applications of mobile users.