Inowiss: Connectivity Management in Wireless Networking

Lemhachheche R., Inowiss: Connectivity Management in Wireless Networking, In submission to IT@Home: Unraveling Complexities of Networked Devices in the Home, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Montreal, Canada (CHI 2006), 2006

This paper advocates the user empowerment in terms of networking use. Soon the norm won’t be one device one wireless channel (BT, WiFi, 2-3-4G, Satellite, …), but one device multiple wireless channels. The aim of the Inowiss (INteractions On WIrelesS Systems) projects is to reduce the current “information asymmetry” due to the lack of easy access to resources given to users.

Information asymmetry happens when one of the parties in a transaction has more or better information available concerning the transaction.

The idea is to make wireless networking information fully accessible for the users to make better decisions in regard to their privacy, security and the quality of service.

Riad Lemhachheche has a blog is called Invisible Yet Necessary.

Relation to my thesis: Wireless networks overlap, and we lack of information on the network connectivity (bandwith, latency, coverage, prices, …) to act upon. The author points out that projects such as Mobile Media Metadata has shown that additional information about the network characteristics can improve substantially the user experience. Such data should support the choice of appropriate wireless channel to match users activities. Something I called Intermittent and Planned Connectivity and that Riad Lemhachheche nicely coins as a shift from device (and associated connectivity) to an activity centric view of network connection. A shift from Human-Computer Interaction to Human-Network Interaction. A wireless network able to communicate its settings in a human-readable format is a way to disambiguate connectivity issues in real-world ubiquitous environments.