Design, prototype and evaluation of a Geocast Enabler Architecture for the IP Multimedia Subsystem
Thomas Johansson · KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) · 2011
The evolution from the traditional Internet to the Internet of Things (IoT) is in full progress. Since some of the objects are moving, e.g. vehicles, geoinformation is the key for various distributed application and networking aspects. A Geocast Enabler operating in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) has been identified in order to allow a real-time transmission of information to objects in a specific region. The IMS has in combination with Web 2.0 technology lowered the barrier for developers to incorporate regular telecommunications technology in their applications. The driving force behind these Web 2.0 technologies are simple techniques such as Ajax. A Geocast Enabler Architecture is presented that enables third-party developers to send Geocasted messages to mobile phones and other handheld devices with an HTTP request. The Enabler consists of a server part, deployed in the operators network, and a client part, installed on the device. A third-party creates a sending part that communicates with the server and a receiving part that communicates with the client on the device. Messages are pushed to the receiving part with HTTP using a Comet Service. It is shown that pushing messages this way results in a low latency which is important for time critical services. A hurdle for network operators is a signalling overhead which is very common in newer smartphone application. The Geocast Enabler takes care of keeping signalling traffic to a minimum by using light UDP datagrams, and communicating sparingly.