The Expansion of E-Marketplace to M-Marketplace by Integrating Mobility and Auctions in a Location-Sensitive Environment

Auctioning over Wireless Networks, constitutes an attractive emerging class for m-commerce applications and formulates a procurement negotiation tool supporting the announcement and execution of geographically focused auctions. This is feasible by using the Location-Based Services (LBS), which resulted from the unification of automatic position sensing (GPS) and wireless connectivity. The present article aims to analyse and match the properties of heterogeneous wireless networks (mobile, GPS) and to set a framework for the development of Reverse M-Auction based Marketplaces operating in a location sensitive context with application in freight services procurement. A location-sensitive, reverse, M-auction application in the freight transport market where potential suppliers (carriers) are able to place bids for Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) shipments or during empty trips while on the move aiming to gain from economies of scope, is the application examined in this chapter.

Service Innovation Management

Nowadays that the world depends more and more in services, there is no issue more fundamental for service organizations than understanding the factors that separate success from failure in new service development. The new service process is not so well studied and researched as new product development, and as a result the failure rate is high. However in order to survive in the market place, service organisations need to make the most of all of their resources in order to introduce new services to market ahead of the competition. The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate the factors that have impact on success and failure in new service development (NSD) in the telecommunication (TLC) sector. The results of the exploratory study are summarized in a conceptual model for further research.

Converged Networks and Seamless Mobility

Convergence in the communication industry is a reality – networks are being integrated, digital devices are being unified, and organizations seeking to take advantage of the breadth of opportunities are moving into neighboring industries. These ground-shifting changes have precipitated the emergence of what has come to be known as the Next Generation Network (NGN). Bridging the fixed and mobile divide, that enables the “always connected lifestyle”, where all electronic equipment can be connected to each other in a seamless manner, and users access a wide range of services free of any time, location, and device constraints, stands out as the most notable manifestation of an NGN proposition. This is also known as the Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC). Given the general confusion and uncertainty that characterizes the rapidly integrated communications industry, this paper seeks to assess whether an integrated bundled network can itself become the gateway for the efficient delivery of multimedia applications and services. Applying the Resource Based View (RBV) theory, on the recent developments in the FMC space, this paper concurs with industry-wide skepticism and provides guidelines for the fulfillment of the NGN promise.

Mobile Telecom System Architectures—IMS an Evolution Path Towards IP Convergence

This chapter deals with the description of the various applied Mobile System Architectures, showing the evolution path towards the IP Convergence issue, with the introduction of the IP Multimedia Subsystem. It contains the most important networks entities of the different Mobile Networks Systems and their integration to the IMS. Being the core of the Fixed-Mobile Converge, IMS’ operation, functionality and interoperability with the other Telecom platforms are analyzed. Furthermore, aiming in a cost effective high QoS solution, typical performance evaluation strategies of the network manufacturers are described. Its scope is to give an overview of the existing architectures, their network components, their characteristics and their differences, while also show how nearly all traditional Telecom networks can be converged, with the use of the IMS, to an all-IP network, where various applications can be accessed by heterogeneous network platforms.

A Case Study on the QoS, Energy Consumption and Mobility of WLANs and WMANs

The present chapter contains a thorough investigation of Quality of Service, Energy Conservation and mobility in 802.11 and 802.16 standards. Interest on these two technologies arises from the fact that they are designed to cooperate offering wireless access capabilities in Next Generation Networks (NGNs). Under NGN Wireless architectures, key challenges must be taken into account: (a) Broadband technologies are based on QoS Enabled Telecommunication Services; (b) Mobile devices are battery limited. In fact, how to prolong the life time of a mobile device and minimize power usage is a very important design issue; (c) Wireless operation means that the user is expected to roam freely, which must also be taken into account. The dependability of NGN operation is obviously depended on these three features.

Channel Management Schemes to Support Services in Ubiquitous Communications Infrastructures for Future Transportation Technologies

Transportation and Internet Technologies have evolved dramatically during the last decade, laying solid foundation for the future generation of the Ubiquitous Internet access, omnipresent Web technologies and ultimate automated information cyberspace. As a result, the current efforts in the research and development in the areas of Future Transportation and Next Generation of Internet Technologies promotes formation of inter-disciplinary international teams of experts, scientists, researchers and engineers to create a new generation of applications and technologies that will facilitate the future transportation system. The authors present a dynamic channel management scheme for a Mobile Communication System, that supports services in Ubiquitous Communications Infrastructures for Future Transportation Technologies (DCMS-FTT). The performance is improved as it can be seen from the simulation results.

Wavelength Division Multiplexing Technologies and their Applications

This chapter is an introduction of the Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) technologies (such as Dense WDM and coarse WDM) and their recent applications in optical networks. WDM is used to multiplex multiple optical carrier signals on a single optical fibre by using different wavelengths of laser light to carry different signals. This allows for a multiplication in available bandwidth and, in addition, makes possible to perform bidirectional communications over one strand of fibre. We present the optical components used in WDM and review some of the most important applications of the technology.

Channel Characterization and Modelling for Mobile Communications

As a consequence of the growing interest in wireless communications systems, much effort is being devoted to the channel characterization and modelling. This is obvious since the performance depends fundamentally on the channels under consideration, so a communication system design must be preceded by the study of channel characteristics. This chapter considers the propagation environment in which a wireless system operates. In other words, we are primarily interested in the characterization of radio links between the transmitter and the receiver antenna that will be modelled by randomly time-variant linear systems. Wireless communication channels are usually described by considering three separable phenomena, namely, path loss, shadowing, and multipath fading. In the following, we briefly overview various efforts to characterize such aspects of wireless communication channels. Firstly, in this chapter we address the estimation of signal decay due to propagation loss which is very important in the determination of the necessary transmission power and the coverage area. Although propagation loss models are sometimes quite accurate, they generally fail to predict signal fluctuations due to the effect of the terrain near the antenna. Such a phenomenon of signal fluctuations is usually called shadowing. However, the effect of multipath fading is generally more complex because it does not only change in time but also varies over frequency. As a result, this topic will also be presented in enough depth and a number of statistical models will be studied. Moreover, the various categories of fading will be discussed. Finally, a novel small-scale model derived by the author is presented in order to give a recent application of the theory.

Stochastic Modeling of Narrowband Fading Channels with Three Dimensional Diffuse Scattering

This chapter studies a composite stochastic model, in which the diffuse component arises from three dimensional (3-D) multipath scattering. That case occurs especially in dense scattering environments, in which the tall obstacles cause arrival of multipath power in the elevation plane, besides that arriving in the azimuth one. Also the multipath components are assumed to arrive at the mobile receiver in specific angular sectors at the azimuth receiver’s plane. The last is physically justified by multipath power blocking due to the channel obstacles (shadow fading), or/and lack of scattering objects at specific angular directions, or/and directional antennas utilization. An extended Suzuki model, where the Rician process for the diffuse scattering component is multiplied by a lognormal one, is considered as an appropriate composite model. The most important metrics of the model are presented, according to its assumptions. More specifically, from the closed form autocorrelation function, the Doppler power spectral density (PSD) of the diffuse component can be analytically derived. Afterwards exact solutions for the envelope and phase probability density functions (PDF’s) are presented. Exact solutions are also derived for the second order statistics, i.e. the level crossing rate (LCR) and the average duration of fades (ADF’s). An efficient deterministic simulation scheme will be presented, which implements the analytical model on a digital computer. Finally a curve fitting of the LCR to real world data, drawn from channel measurements, will demonstrate the flexibility and usefulness of the extended Suzuki model.

From E to U

Telecommunications and Internet Technologies have evolved dramatically during the last decade, laying a solid foundation for the future generation of Ubiquitous Internet access, omnipresent Web technologies and ultimate automated information cyberspace. Ubiquitous computing has been investigated since 1993. As a result, current efforts in research and development in the areas of Next Generation Internet and Telecommunications Technologies promote the formation of inter-disciplinary international teams of experts, scientists, researchers and engineers to create a new generation of applications and technologies that will facilitate the fully-automated information cyberspace systems, such as Future House 2015. The authors discuss the current state-of-the-art in the world of Telecommunications and Internet Technologies, new technological trends in the Internet and Automation Industries, E-manufacturing, Ubiquity, Convergence, as well as the concept of the Fully-automated Future House 2015, the 2006 Web Report with the Microsoft project on Easy Living, while promoting research and development in the interdisciplinary projects conducted by multinational teams world-wide.