IMPACT: Investigation of Mobile-user Patterns Across University Campuses using WLAN Trace Analysis Export

@techreport{hsu:impact, abstract = {We conduct the most comprehensive study of WLAN traces to date. Measurements collected from four major university campuses are analyzed with the aim of developing fundamental understanding of realistic user behavior in wireless networks. Both individual user and inter-node (group) behaviors are investigated and two classes of metrics are devised to capture the underlying structure of such behaviors. For individual user behavior we observe distinct patterns in which most users are 'on' for a small fraction of the time, the number of access points visited is very small and the overall online user mobility is quite low. We clearly identify categories of heavy and light users. In general, users exhibit high degree of similarity over days and weeks. For group behavior, we define metrics for encounter patterns and friendship. Surprisingly, we find that a user, on average, encounters less than 6\% of the network user population within a month, and that encounter and friendship relations are highly asymmetric. We establish that number of encounters follows a biPareto distribution, while friendship indexes follow an exponential distribution. We capture the encounter graph using a small world model, the characteristics of which reach steady state after only one day. We hope for our study to have a great impact on realistic modeling of network usage and mobility patterns in wireless networks.}, author = {Hsu, Wei J. and Helmy, Ahmed}, citeulike-article-id = {2820662}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://nile.usc.edu/MobiLib/Trace_analysis_TR.pdf}, institution = {Electrical Engineering Department, University of Southern California}, keywords = {crawdad, dartmouth\_campus, ibm\_watson, measurement, wireless}, month = {July}, posted-at = {2008-05-21 17:27:02}, priority = {2}, title = {{IMPACT}: Investigation of Mobile-user Patterns Across University Campuses using {WLAN} Trace Analysis}, url = {http://nile.usc.edu/MobiLib/Trace_analysis_TR.pdf}, year = {2005} }

TY - RPRT ID - hsu:impact L3 - citeulike-article-id:2820662 N2 - We conduct the most comprehensive study of WLAN traces to date. Measurements collected from four major university campuses are analyzed with the aim of developing fundamental understanding of realistic user behavior in wireless networks. Both individual user and inter-node (group) behaviors are investigated and two classes of metrics are devised to capture the underlying structure of such behaviors. For individual user behavior we observe distinct patterns in which most users are 'on' for a small fraction of the time, the number of access points visited is very small and the overall online user mobility is quite low. We clearly identify categories of heavy and light users. In general, users exhibit high degree of similarity over days and weeks. For group behavior, we define metrics for encounter patterns and friendship. Surprisingly, we find that a user, on average, encounters less than 6% of the network user population within a month, and that encounter and friendship relations are highly asymmetric. We establish that number of encounters follows a biPareto distribution, while friendship indexes follow an exponential distribution. We capture the encounter graph using a small world model, the characteristics of which reach steady state after only one day. We hope for our study to have a great impact on realistic modeling of network usage and mobility patterns in wireless networks. TI - {IMPACT}: Investigation of Mobile-user Patterns Across University Campuses using {WLAN} Trace Analysis KW - crawdad KW - dartmouth_campus KW - ibm_watson KW - measurement KW - wireless AU - Hsu, Wei AU - Helmy, Ahmed PY - 2005/July// UR - http://nile.usc.edu/MobiLib/Trace_analysis_TR.pdf ER -