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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze mobile tethering from technological and social perspectives. Mobile tethering allows us to share cellular data connection with others over WiFi, Bluetooth or USB. Although the technology is ready and has promising outcomes, service providers and the users still keep their distance. Therefore, the incentives for the users and service providers should be identified. Design/methodology/approach: Technical challenges in terms of energy and bandwidth consumption are explored using an application specifically developed for mobile tethering. Usage issues are studied through conjoint analysis, in which we analyze the importance of technical aspects as well as social conditions for sharing data connection with others. Findings: The research shows that although energy, bandwidth and security are important technical challenges, users are mainly concerned about social aspects, such as with whom the connection will be shared, rather than monetary issues. Mobile tethering is a viable cooperative service, only when users are familiar with the person with whom the data connection is being shared. Research limitations/implications: In the technical evaluation of the mobile tethering application, only Android operating systems are being used. Other operating systems (e.g. iOS) may perform differently. Moreover, only a small fraction of smartphones and tablets has been tested. Practical implications: Service providers tend to block mobile tethering technology, as they do not have control and do not expect to gain revenues. However, service providers have the abilities to satisfy the security and privacy concerns of the users and can create secure femtocells for their customers. Social implications: Mobile tethering performance results indicate that more people can access the Internet while they are mobile even if they do not have cellular data subscription. More Internet-based services can be offered to people while they roam in other countries. Originality/value: For technology developers, both the key technical issues and the concerns of the consumers are highlighted. Future applications must contain reliable security and privacy protocols in their design. Moreover, the significance of the social networks is shown in the decision-making of the use of mobile tethering, especially with respect to the credit exchange. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Future radio access networks will require new self-management solutions to handle the increasing operational complexity caused by multi-technology and multi-layer deployments. Current networks already include stand-alone SON (Self-Organizing Networks) solutions, but these are not sufficient to properly handle the networks of tomorrow. In this paper, we highlight the key challenges for such self-management solutions based on our research and extensive feedback from several major operators. Based on these challenges we present a set of relevant use cases to validate future solutions and discuss our vision for a unified management framework, which integrates the existing and future advanced SON functions across several radio access technologies. It comprises (i) an integrated SON management system, in charge of policy transformation/supervision and conflict detection/handling; (ii) advanced multi-RAT/layer SON functions; and (iii) a Decision Support System providing measurement-based assistance for residual operational tasks, such as timely recommendations for targeted new site deployments. © 2013 Authors.

The development of self-management solutions for (multi-technology, multi-layer) mobile communication networks is driven by their increasing operational complexity. Initial stand-alone SON (Self-Organizing Networks) solutions are already available, but are not sufficient to handle the networks of tomorrow. In this paper we present our approach at developing a unified management framework that integrates the existing and future advanced SON functions across several radio access technologies. The envisioned self-management system comprises (i) an integrated SON management system, in charge of policy transformation/supervision and conflict detection/handling; (ii) advanced multi-RAT/layer SON functions; and (iii) a Decision Support System providing measurement-based assistance for residual operational tasks, such as timely recommendations for targeted new site deployments. © 2013 IEEE.

In the invited talk 'Car2x with SDN, NFV and supercomputers' we report about how our past work with SDN [1, 2] allows the design of a smart mobility fieldlab in the huge parking lot the Amsterdam Arena. We explain how we can engineer and test software that handle the complex conditions of the Car2X case. The talk starts by describing the engineering challenges that developers of smart car telecommunications and computing infrastructures face. We concentrate on the development of software defined networks (SDN) that support smart cars optimally and securely over a heterogeneous, dynamic and developing ICT infrastructure. The goal here is to enable smart cars to profit maximally from any bit of information available from fixed and moving objects as well as persons. For example, in a low tech situation, the lack of other options makes that one has to fall back to GPRS to download only traffic jam locations. As a contrast, in an advanced telecom environment video streams from multiple cars are transmitted via 5G pico cells to computers a few millisecond nearby. These computers fuse the video information to generate a local traffic model. In an ultimate situation, cars use all the communications infrastructures that are available including the numerous WiFi hotspots, all generations of mobile telecommunications, the developing car-to-car communications technologies and even the smart phone of a passing person. SDN technologies deal with the complexities of such communication environment. © 2015 IEEE.