Enterprise Mobility Strategy

Greetings from the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra where Joseph Sweeney from IBRS is speaking on "Creating a Sustainable Enterprise Mobility Strategy". There is a IBRS "Creating a Sustainable Mobility Strategy Whitepaper" an video available.

Joseph explained his first computer was a Dulmont Magnum 1970s laptop. He explained that to replicate the power of the mobile phone he has today using the Dulmont's 870's technology would require a computer which would cover much of eastern Australia. Mobile phones are powerful and have wireless data, but organisations have difficulty exploiting this. Joseph argued that mobility strategies fall in a gap between small and large IT projects and then go wrong.

However, he did not explain what an "Enterprise Mobility Strategy" was. I assume it is related to "Enterprise mobility management" and it is to do with replacing desktop and laptop computers with mobile phones and tablet computers. However, as Joseph points out that the mobility strategy needs to be connected to the organisation goals. It seems to me that on its own "mobility" is not much use: the organisation has to have something which it doesn't or wants o do, which could be done better mobile.

One example which Joseph gave was gas workers who had to drive an hour back to base to pick up details of their next job. It seemed odd to me that such workers would not already have a two way radio for receiving jobs, while on the road. He pointed out there were some difficulties for using standard mobile phones in this situation, such as worrying about the risk of sparks from the phone lighting gas or workers being overcome by gas a not noticed missing for hours. However, there are intrinsically safe phones with lone workers/man-down alarms. The intrinsically safe devices have been designed so they don't create sparks. A "lone worker" device will sound an alarm if the worker does not move for an extended period and may be incapacitated. An example is the  SONIM XP3340 Phone.

A New Dawn in Government Digital Servicing

Greetings from the 2014 Digital Government Conference in Canberra, where Gary Steinberg, CIO, Department of Human Services is speaking on "A New Dawn in Government Digital Servicing". He commented that their student customers are using the new digital channel much more than older customers (which seems reasonable). Use of call, face to face and telephony service channels still account for 40% of the customer access. The department is looking at how to move these customers to the digital service. A new service "Express Connect" will be launched with the customer "in channel". Translating the hype, the customer will use a video conference to communicate with the department, using voice and face recognition to identify the customer. It was claimed this would work with a smart TV set and a smart phone and allow document access. This appears to be designed to replicate a traditional face to face interview to make older customers fee more comfortable. Howevr, the interface also uses what is described as "gaming" technology, with a percentage score indicating how complete the customer's claim is. It will be interesting to see how well this works in practice. It was noted that using the TV as the display would allow the customer to more easily see, than on a small mobile device. This was described as interacting in-channel, in real time.

There would appear to be scope for using this form of wireless soft-docking (I made that term up) for executives who spend all day talking and presenting and never typing. It might also be used for e-learning as well.

The Department intends to use the same interface would be used in people's homes, in offices and in managed care residential facilities. He pointed out that real people don't fit the assumed categories, such as having sixty year old students, with children. Also in ten days time Human Services will be launching a new online service based on "we know who you are", using gaming scores for user friendliness.

Obvious Consequences of Mobile Use

Like many Harvard Business Review articles, "The Unanticipated Consequences of a Frictionless Mobile Experience" by Peter Kriss dresses up the obvious in jargon, to make it look profound. The article relates that making customer surveys easier to fill in (via a mobile device) resulted in lower ratings for a hotel. The conclusion was that because the survey was easier to fill in, customers who were less engaged filled it and so the hotel's rating went down. As far as I can see, this has little to do with mobile devices and you would get the same effect from switching from a multi-page paper questionnaire to a tick-and-flick postcard.

Smartphone Mobile App Mapping APIs

Professor Hanan Samet, from University of Maryland, will speak on "Duking it out at the Smartphone Mobile App Mapping API Corral: Apple, Google, and the Competition",  at the Australian National University in Canberra, 17 April 2013.

The recent introduction of the Apple iPhone 5 and the accompanying iOS6 software environment which, among other changes, replaced the use of the Google Maps API in iOS5 by Apple's own Maps API, has led to significant changes in the user experience with apps that make use of maps and has resulted in closer scrutiny of mapping applications on mobile devices. Many of these changes in the user experience deal with the quality of the data that is being produced and presented to the user, and has led to a wide ranging discussion of data quality and the seeming lack of quality assurance policies and protocols by Apple. These are widely documented in web postings. However, equally important are significant changes in the manner in which the data is presented to the user, but, surprisingly, not much attention has been paid to this aspect of the user experience which is somewhat analogous to the concept of the ``last mile'' when discussing the bandwidth of communications networks and its associated costs. The changes in the presentation and in the amount of data that are presented to the user on the Apple mapping platform, with an emphasis on mobile devices with a small form factor such as smartphones, are tabulated and compared along with other mapping platforms such as the iOS apps of ESRI, MapQuest, and OpenSeaMap (using the open source map data of OpenStreetMap), as well as Bing Maps and Nokia Maps for which no iOS app exists and thus the corresponding mobile web versions are used. Both the pre-iOS6 and post-iOS6 versions of the Google Maps API are included. * Best Paper Award, 1st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Mobile Geographic Information Systems (MobiGIS 2012), Redondo Beach, CA, November 2012 ** Joint work with Brendan C. Fruin and Sarana Nutanong

Interoperability of mobile devices for crisis management

The report "Interoperability of mobile devices for crisis management", provides the results of a 2012 EU workshop and a successful field  experiment in mapping using mobile devices.

In general, the experiment was a success: all data feeds reached the eOSOCC, all teams left on time, and
there were no major problems during the field exercise. Devices were able to use either GPRS/3G or were
able to utilize the available WiFi network hotspots on site to transfer their data.
The final map with all incoming feeds in the eOSOCC was very cluttered due the great number of devices,
field teams, and different systems. The eOSOCC team leaders reported that there was considerable
information overload. As much as 328 entities of information (placemarks, tracks, polygons, etc.) were
simultaneously streamed to the eOSOCC. Therefore sophisticated editing, filtering, and visualization
functionalities (e.g., multiple views) have to be available for OSOCC staff.
6By the time the first teams arrived back from the field, most information had been processed and was
available on a summarized situation map. The eOSOCC team then converted the available information in a
priority list and action items. After each team leader was consulted to confirm and correct information, the
eOSOCC was ready for presentation, including an electronic map and action documents.
The pOSOCC leaders used the A0 map they produced for presentation and they had an overview of the
priorities which they marked also with post-it notes. They did not prepare any documents in writing to be
shared or communicated.
Both paper and electronic OSOCC reached similar situation awareness. The final map based briefing
material is almost identical with very few exceptions. Interestingly both OSOCC teams made mistakes with
regard to the exact positions. The mistakes of the eOSOCC team made in transferring accurate data to the
briefing material underline the need for an OSOCC software suite covering the whole workflow of
procedures essential in OSOCC operations.
The outcomes showed that both paper and electronic OSOCCs reached a similar situation awareness in the
same time, identifying similar needs and locations for prioritization, but only the eOSOCC had products
available as sharable electronic maps and documents. The pOSOCC would need at least 30 minutes to come
to the same result. The other advantage of the eOSOCC was the possibility to monitor a situation changing
over time and the possibility to keep track of the situation (awareness) evolution....

From  Interoperability of mobile devices for crisis management", Outcomes of the 1st JRC ECML Crisis Technology Workshop on Mobile Interoperability for International Field Deployment, by Markus Rester, Tom De Groeve, Alessandro Annunziato, Daniele Galliano, Andreas Hirner, Luca Vernaccini, Stefano Paris , European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen, 12-13 March 2012

Bring Your Own Device

Greetings from CSIRO Black Mountain Laboratories in Canberra, where the Australian Computer Society is holding its monthly meeting. The topic  is  "Mobilizing the workforce – Mobility and BYOD" with Danielle Raimet. of Delv Pty Ltd. The idea of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is difficult for corporations and government agencies, due to security issues.DSD have published "Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Considerations for Executives".
However, as Danielle points out mobile computing and BYOD provides benefits. AGIOM is aiming for a 12% mobile workforce. It occurs to me that as mobile users need different application to desktop users and these devices are used outside the corporation, the Australian Public service could take the opportunity to provide services to all public servants in all agencies with one standard service.

BYOD may be implemented using a native Mobile Devicce Management (MDM), Container MDM or Remote Session. All approaches place some limits on what the user can do. MobileIron is an example of a Native MDM.  Good Technology is an example of a container MDM. Citrix and VMWare are the most common Container MDMs, these have the advantage of working on a range of mobile devices, laptops and desktop computers, but are more cumbersome for the mobile user.

Branch Forum:

Mobility and BYOD

Mobilizing the workforce – Mobility and BYOD
IT is constantly under a continuous cycle of development to provide a higher standard of service to end-users, whilst maintaining or reducing IT spend. This is a challenge faced by all organisations however is most obvious in the Government market at present.

To address these trends and challenges IT departments are being asked to provide enhancements and new solutions to provide a more collaborative work environment and a more mobile enabled workforce.

This has been driven by both market trends, such as consumer computing/BYOD, work/life balance initiatives, increased adoption of remote access solutions and a shift towards collaboration/social media initiatives. This, paired with the need to enhance communication amongst staff and customers has rapidly driven a mobility agenda within the global IT landscape.

These market trends have ultimately led to a shift in the way that users demand access to corporate data and has provided a business requirement to ensure data is secure, accessible and available, anywhere, anytime.

This demand has created a new set of challenges for IT departments, most specifically in regards to security and developing policy for the new/changing data delivery methods.

Some of the challenges discussed are:• Corporate or BYOD device;
• Security applied to the device, container/application or both;
• Securing infrastructure and devices;
• Policy and governance, specifically in relation to mobile devices;
• Determining long term mobility strategies; and
• Aligning business requirements and long-term IT strategies with immediate organisational demands. 

Biography: Danielle Raimet Senior Consultant - Delv Pty Ltd Danielle Raimet has worked in both Government and corporate IT environments with a deep understanding of how business requirements drive the need for change to enterprise technology solutions. In her current role, Danielle provides consulting and architectural services to clients, primarily in the field of enterprise mobility, remote access and complimentary solutions (such as corporate Wi-Fi and Unified Communications). She is also experienced in the implementation of technical designs, IT strategy development and technical consulting.

Looking to Defence for Broadband Future

The last session of "Converging on an NBN Future" was a general discussion. I commented that the NBN was conceived and is being built by experienced experts who can relied on to build a system which works. The unanswered question as I see it, is what the nation will do with the NBN. While areas such as education and health are considered likely uses, is there a well funded and planned process to make this happen?

One of the speakers responded to me that we should look to the Defence Department for possible future uses of broadband. This is ironic as when at the Department of Defence I looked to academia for ideas of how the Internet could be used and to formulate Defence and government policy. Now it was being suggested doing the opposite.

One participant pointed out that the Australian Bureau of Statistics released a new "Internet Activity, Australia Survey" at 11:30am today (covering June 2012). The ABS report an annual growth rate in Internet subscribers in Australia of 10% and 96% of Internet connections being broadband. The volume of data downloaded via mobile handsets is increasing at 32% a year.

The last comment for the day was from respected IT journalist John Hilvert, who suggested that when the school parents and citizens association routinely meets on-line, the NBN will have been a success.

Mobile Learning in Canberra

The Gaggle, an informal group of educational designers in Canberra, ACT will next meet Thursday 29 March 4:30pm in Building H137b, Bruce Campus, Canberra Institute of Technology , on the theme Mobile Learning. I will be showing how I designed my ANU ICT Sustainability course notes to work on a mobile device.

We will be looking at snippets of how teachers are using Mobiles in the classroom. We will also be looking at mobile apps that can be used to support the teaching and learning process.

Agenda.

4:30 to 5:10 pm Mobile learning snippets.

• Nina Allen “Moblogs in Marketing”
• Sam Mills and Harry Stevensen “Integrating Mobile Phones in the Commercial Cookery kitchen”.
• Felicia Zhang “Record audio with mobile phones and upload to Moodle”
• Janet Harris “Using mobiles with ESL learners”.
• Other examples from ANU and UC?

5:10 to 5:40 Demonstration of Mobile apps useful for teachers.

• CamScanner which enables you to scan multipage documents and send to email in less than a minute.
• Evernote – notes and task manager which can be accessed from your PC, tablets and phones.
• Livescribe pens. (Felicia Zhang).
• Others include Paper Camera, Summly, iMovie, Instagram.
• Other useful apps?

5:40 to 6:15 Networking

Time and Place

Thursday 29^th March.

H137b Bruce Campus (above the library).

Go in the main entrance near the flag pole on Vowels Crescent.

Internet for the Rest of the World: The Mobile Phone

Greetings from the first Mobile Monday Sydney for 2012. I gave the first talk on "New Ways of Learning to Work: With E-books and E-Learning", this was followed by "VoIP via Mobile Phone: by Dan from VTalk. The last talk now underway is by Mark from Binu on "How to Make a Feature Phone Smarter using the Cloud". Binu uses the Amazon compute cloud to provide a virtual smart-phone server. They host "apps" in the cloud, to overcome the limited processing and storage capacity of non-smart phones. The interesting part of this is that Binu argue they have found a profitable business in providing a service to African customers. What I find interesting is that this same service could be used to provide education, via mobile phones.

Dan argues that these low cost phones, which are popular in developing nations are capable of providing the type of services currently though of as requiring a smart phone. This makes sense as most low cost phones thought of as "dumb" actually have a web browser built in, this is a WAP browser, which was intended to provide simple information services, but was overtaken by smart phones.

Binu's approach is similar to that used by Amazon for their Kindle Fire Tablet Computer. Knidle carry out processing of web content on their cloud computer server and then use the tablet computer essentially as a graphics terminal. This allows a lower cost lower power device to be sued and also reduces the amount of data being communicated (if the application is well designed). It happens I wrote a multi-part article about this for the Australian Computer Society Canberra Branch newsletter in 1991, which then lead to a Defense Department sponsored project. With the passage of time some of this has become easier, but other parts have become harder.

At question time the issue of security came up. As with Amazon's service, Binu's by its nature has access to more information that where a conventional web browser is used. Because the apps run on the server, the company could, if they wished to, have access to the internal information. Obviously, like any company, Binu is required to provide information demanded by national security authorities, under national laws.

Digital Futures Project

The Australian National University (ANU) , University of Southern Queensland (USQ), and the University of South Australia (UniSA) are collaborating on a $9M Digital Futures Project. The project aims to research social and policy challenges in boosting participation in higher education through technology rich learning environments. This part of the federal Government's Collaborative Research Networks (CRN) program, which aims to boost research at small regional universities by teaming them with large city ones. This project will research Mobility, Openness and Digital Communities. ANUand USQ previously collaborated on an Engineering Hubs and Spokes Project for teaching undergraduates using blended learning. ANU and USQ have an alliance for teaching and research. Currently I am studying Research-Led Education via a program at ANU, including courses provided by USQ.

Huawei Deuce U8520 Dual SIM Android Smart Phone at Sydney Linux User Group

I have volinteered to give a lightening talk about the Huawei Deuce U8520 Dual SIM Android Smart Phone at Sydney Linux User Group Sydney Linux User Group (SLUG), Friday, 30 September 2011, 6pm at Google's Sydney's office. Here is a summary of what I want to say:

Huawei Deuce U8520 Dual SIM Android Smart Phone

1. Under $249 from AllPhones
2. 3.2 Inch touch screen, Android 2.2.2, 160 MB RAM, 2GB Flash card, QCT MSM7x27 processor
3. User Manual on the FCC web site.

Dual SIM

1. Dual SIM both active at the same time: one 3G one 2G
   
2. Have used it with a Virgin Broadband postpaid SIM (3G) and my Vodafone postpaid SIM (2G) at same time.
3. Catch is that using one SIM cuts off access to the other.

Good Points

1. Reasonable price,
2. Dual SIM,
3. Touch screen is very good,
4. Generic Google Android,
5. Usual smart phone features.

Problems

1. Smart phone functions work fine, but phone call audio quality is poor.
2. Battery only lasts 12 hours.
3. Unexplained activation of phone flattened battery in under six hours.
   

Suggested Solution

1. Convert into a Flip Phone with 3D Printing to improve call quality and prevent inadvertent activation flattening battery.
   

Huawei Deuce U8520 Dual SIM Android Smart Phone

Allphones are selling the Huawei Deuce U8520 Dual SIM Android Smart Phone for under $300. This device has two slots for SIM cards, allowing the phone to operate with two telephone numbers from two different phone companies simultaneously. This feature is popular in parts of the world where there are many phone companies competing. This could also be useful to have separate personal and business numbers available on one phone. One catch is that only one of the SIM cards can use 3G, the other is limited to the GSM network.

I would be interested to see if I can put my Virgin Broadband SIM card into the 3G socket, along with the Vodafone SIM into the 2G socket. The idea would be to use the GSM phone for ordinary calls and the 3G for data. While it is possible to get Internet access via a phone account, the prices are very high compared to broadband only plans. The phone would then act as a WiFi hub to provide Internet access to my laptop and TiVo. Has anyone tried this? The discussion in the Whirlpool Forum suggests it should be possible.

Unlocking a USB Wireless Modem

I wanted to have wireless broadband access while visiting Malaysia. My phone will work fine, as Vodafone offer global roaming (for a price). But Virgin Mobile Broadband service on my wireless router is only available within Australia. So I thought I might get a temporary SIM card for overseas use. But this requires the modem to be unlocked to use a different carrier's SIM card.

According to Virgin's help site, the Pre-paid Mobile Broadband modem is locked to the Virgin network. What was less clear is if the post-paid service I have is also locked. As far as I can work out the post-paid modems are also locked, the only difference is that there is no need to have paid a set amount to have them unlocked. The unlock process is to send a request via the on-line support system, with the make and model of modem (mine is HUAWEI E169) and the IMEI Number (a unique number written on the modem). Virgin the send an unlock code.

One thing which makes this difficult is that Virgin's help system requires that I enter the mobile phone number for the account. As this is a data service I don;t know what the phone number is (I don't use the modem to make phone calls). Virgin issue an account number which I use to log into the Virgin billing system, but this does not seem to work for the help system.

New Standard Makes the Web More Energy Efficient

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced version 1.0 of the "Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format" (10 March 2011). EXI represents XML data in a more compact binary format, with a claimed 100-fold performance improvement. W3C see this being used for smart phones, sensor networks, cameras, auto-mobiles, real-time trading systems, and high speed aircraft.

Compression of ordinary XML would take care of most of the bandwidth issues for devices such as smart phones. However, if very large amounts of data are being transmitted by sensor devices, then this would be of use. It would also be interesting to see if it would be feasible to apply XML to areas where it has not been used before, such as the surveillance data being transmitted from a UAV (robot aircraft).

Some of the benefits of XML are lost with EXI, such as its human readable format. But than while the text of XML could be read, in most cases the for mat of the data is so complex that without the schema used it will make little sense to anyone. At least with EXI as soon as the reader (human or machine) realises the data is in EXI, they will have a standardised format to interpret.

There is also the potential to use EXI to compress XML data for transmission or storage, without the cooperation of the creating and consuming applications. It might also be used to make XML based document formats, such as OOXML, ODF and epub more efficient. But given these already use compression algorithms, there savings may be too small to be worth the additional complexity.

So far EXI has been incorporated into ZigBee Smart Energy V2.0 for smart electricity meters and appliances. One application is for charging electric vehicles. There is a Go Get modified Prius parked at a charge point in Glebe Point Road, Sydney.

Largest screen for a pocketable tablet computer is 6 inches

In "Largest screen for a smart phone" I suggested

a 4 inch screen was the largest which could be used for a easily hand held device: the size of a credit card: 85.60 × 53.98 mm (standardised as the ID-1 format). Following this approach the size for a larger, but still pocket size tablet computer would be the B7 size used for passports (ID-3 125 × 88 mm or 4.921 × 3.465 in).This would provide a 6 inch diagonal screen, assuming the screen went to the edge of the device.

It should be noted that B7 is approximately 4:3 ratio, which is squarer than the format used by many of the smart phones and tablet computers. The wider screens are useful for watching HDTV (16:9 format), but 4:3 is better for most information displays.

This suggests that the numerious 7 inch tablet computers are too large. But also devices such as the Dell Streak 5 smartphone/tablet PC with a 5 inch screen (5:3 aspect ratio) with a case (case: 152.9 × 79.1 mm or 6.02 x 3.11 inches) are not quite right either.

Largest screen for a smart phone

In "Should the iPhone 5 get a larger screen?" (CNET
January 21, 2011 11:15 AM PST) David Carnoy asks if the iPhones 3.5 inch screen should be made larger to compete with 4 inch Android phones. He comments that some of the screens larger than 4 inches (such as the 4.3 inch EVO are "bulky"). When teaching web design for mobile devices to students in 2006 I had to consider how large a screen to design for. The larger the screen, the easier it was for the students to design for.

So I considered what ultimate limit there was on the size of a mobile phone screen. I decided the limiting factor was the size of the human hand, this was partly because the phone had to be comfortably held in the hand and also fit in a pocket (and pockets are sized to fit hands). But what size is a hand. In a flash of inspiration I considered the size of the typical credit card: 85.60 × 53.98 mm (standardised as the ID-1 format).

Allowing for margins, the height of a credit card is also about the same as the width of a newspaper column (1.83 inches or about 47 mm). That would suggest a reasonable amount of content could be displayed on a portrait format screen that size.

Credit cards are also about the same size of a business card. This seem reasonable, as both are designed to be held in the hand and fit in a wallet, which fits in a pocket. The wallet has to be a little larger than the cards it accommodates. So the size of a credit card seemed to be a natural maximum size for a hand held, pocket size device. This has a diagonal size of 101 mm (4 inches) and supports Mr. Carnoy's view that devices with screens bigger than 4 inches are clumsy.

ps: There is speculation in the Wikipedia about the origin of the size of a credit card. I suggest it derives from the human hand.

Optus ZTE 7 Inch Tablet Computer Looks Okay

Optus are offering a 7 Inch tablet computer in Australia. This appears to be the ZTE Blade. The unit is priced higher than the Huawei Ideos Tablet S7 (sold by Tesltra as the T-Touch Tab), but much lower than the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The ZTE unit does not have a capacitive touch screen and is a lot less responsive to finger input than the Samsung, but seems faster than the Telstra unit. It gets a reasonable review from CNET.

Femtocells for Wireless Broadband

Professor Mark Reed, Principal Researcher, NICTA, talked on "Next Generation Wireless: How can we solve the data crunch?" at the Australian National University in Canberra, this morning. This was timely as I was at a workshop with people from the Bangladesh government discussing "e-Government for Developing Nations". One key point is that wireless allows skipping generations of telecommunications technology.

Mark argued that Femtocells can provided greatly expanded broadband wireless and outlined research areas. However, it seemed to me the major issue was how this technology could be integrated into the business models of telecommunications companies (as illustrated by the lack of a business case holding up progress with the National Broadband Network). In other words the research question is: "How do we make money out of this?". As an example, one way would be for the customer who buys a femtocell to share in the revenue from others using the cell (this happens with some public WiFi systems).

Previously I suggested wireless be built into the NBN modems installed in homes. This would provide public femtocells and a very profitable supplement to the wired service.

One technical area for research is how to carry video efficiently. As Mark pointed out video is the major driver for wireless use. But video has very different characteristics to voice transmission and web access. It should be feasible to make video hundreds of times more efficient with a few simple protocol tweaks. Changes to the network topology would make it hundreds of millions times more efficient. Some changes are relatively simple, such as changing packet sizes and priorities, some will require hardware changes, such as putting caching in the cells. While there are many millions of videos which people might watch, there will be a relatively small number which most people will be watching at one time. Also the system can anticipate what people will want to watch and download it when there is spare network capacity.

Another issue is the use of mesh networks. With this arrangement, the consumer's handsets and base stations can communicate with each other, supplementing the fixed infrastructure. This could be used with intelligent and predictive caching.

Next Generation Wireless

Professor Mark Reed, Principal Researcher, NICTA , will talk on "Next Generation Wireless: How can we solve the data crunch?" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 11am, 25 November 2010. Wireless in one of the options for completing the National Broadband Network (NBN). This is a free talk, no need to book, just turn up:

Next Generation Wireless: How can we solve the data crunch?

Assoc. Prof. Mark Reed (NICTA)

APPLIED SIGNAL PROCESSING SERIES

DATE: 2010-11-25
TIME: 11:00:00 - 12:00:00
LOCATION: RSISE Seminar Room, ground floor, building 115, cnr. North and Daley Roads, ANU
CONTACT: charlotte.hucher@cecs.anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT:
With the forecast exponential growth of mobile broadband over the next few years and the availability of 3G mobile systems that are spectrally efficient, there remains a question of whether 4G systems will solve the key problems of coverage, throughput, and cost. This talk will discuss next generation wireless systems taking insight and input from commercial drivers and needs. It will explore the "data crunch" issue driven by smartphones and social networking and highlight that spectrum allocation and the deployment of 4G/LTE will not alone solve the problem. Interestingly, this initiates a lot of new and interesting research problems that havn't been explored in any depth by the research community, including small cell (femtocell) technology and self organising network (SON) technology.

BIO:
Mark Reed is a leading researcher in the area of WCDMA receiver and network design with more than 18 years of experience with positions in the USA, Switzerland, and Australia. He received his B. Eng. (Honours) from RMIT in 1990 and Ph.D. in Engineering from University of South Australia in 2000. He is an Adjunct Assoc. Prof. at the Australian National University and a Principal Researcher and Project leader at NICTA where he has been since 2003 and leads a team on a research-inspired commercial project. Mark pioneered the area of iterative detection techniques for WCDMA base station receivers and has more than 60 publications and eight patent applications. He has a mix of real-world industrial experience as well as research experience where he continues to put his techniques into practice. Mark has previously performed research and developed real-time world- first Satellite-UMTS and mobile WiMAX demonstration systems. Recently Mark has lead a team to realize a real-time WCDMA Femtocell modem working at RF and tested against independent equipment. This realization contains world-first advanced receiver techniques that significantly improve the uplink throughput and range. Mark is a senior member of the IEEE and from 2005-2007 he was an Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY..

Australian Mobile Applications in Shanghai

Mobile Monday Shanghai is hosting "The Future of Mobile Applications", at Kathleen's 5 in the Shanghai Art Museum, 26 July 2010. This is organised by the Australia Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) and sponsored by the Victorian Government. Attending companies include: Academy of Information Technology, Blackglass, Bulpadok, Crewjo, Direct Digital Group, Gruden, Internetrix, Netagi, Peoplelogic, Unseen TV, Valleyarm Digital and ZAC Toons. The organisers claim the National Broadband Network (NBN) will be an enabler for the mobile industry. It will be interesting to hear how this fixed fibre network has synergies with wireless. I presented at the MobileMonday Global Summit 2008 in Kuala Lumpur, which was an excellent event.