3G Bandwidth Bundling for Ubiquitous Wireless Communications

In August, 2008, Hong Kong has witnessed a level-5 fire in Cornwall Court. The fire devoured four people, including two brave firefighters, and dozens were injured. Communication inefficiency before and during the firefighting is believed to be the main cause of their deaths. It is reported that the firefighters were not adequately prepared for the fire’s scale and failed in requesting help when they were trapped in the fire. With more communication resources, such as on-site video briefing beforehand or more flexible means of communication, they would have survived and helped save more lives [news_1&2].This project aims to utilize the ubiquitous 3G connections to prevent recurrence of the above tragedy. Nowadays 3G cellular networks serve many countries and regions, including China, Hong Kong, Japan and USA etc. In Hong Kong, nearly 3 million people subscribe to 3G services. The ubiquitous 3G cellular network provides its users with the most ready and convenient communication medium when other wireless options are inconvenient or impossible at all.However, a single 3G connection often fails to live up to users' expectation due to its limited bandwidth and instability in communication, as well as the power constraints of 3G phones. Though HSPA/3G in Hong Kong normally provides a 7.2Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink connection, it’s estimated that an average user can only use up to 1/4 of that bandwidth, which is far from satisfactory for data-intensive sessions. To make matters worse, mobility and decay in wireless communications further decrease the already-limited 3G bandwidth to lower than 100 kbps. Moreover, the haunting specter of limited energy for mobile devices often annoys their users with untimely blackouts and unfinished communications.In this project, the researchers propose a methodology of bundling 3G connections to solve the above problems. The basic idea of 3G connection bundling is to bring available 3G connections together to form a much broader super-connection and place all valuable resources, such as bandwidth and battery energy under better control. This kind of bundling enables many services that were originally impossible for segregated units. For example, with bundled 3G connections, many passers-by around Cornwall Court that day could collaborate to continuously stream high-quality videos revealing every perspective of the fire to better prepare firefighters before leaving the fire station. And the two trapped firefighters would have stood a larger chance of successful communication with the outside world through bundled wireless connections. Moreover, the outcomes of this project may support other 3G applications, such as mobile TV and gaming, which require prolonged operation time, responsive links and smooth exchanges of large quantities of information.While the methodology of 3G bundling is promising, several challenges such as how to achieve transparency, feasibility, efficiency, energy reservation etc. are unaddressed. This project plans to study various issues related to 3G bundling. In particular, the researchers will carry out the following major research tasks:Designing fundamental protocols to enable 3G bundling and network formulation;Optimizing allocation and management of resources such as bandwidth and 3G phone energy; andImplementing a prototype system to realize 3G bandwidth bundling protocols and to evaluate its performance.The researchers are confident that they can complete the project and deliver the expected outcomes. The project team has had extensive experiences in the field of wireless communications, evidenced by extensive R&D work on 3G, WiFi, WiMAX, sensor network and their integrations in two large ITF projects, and many research papers published in top conferences and journals.[news_1] http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/four_dead_as_hk_nightclub_fire_spreads_554192news_2] http://www.singtao.com/yesterday/loc/0816ao14.html