An alternative strategy for location tracking

Mobile radio communications raise two major problems. First: a very poor radio link quality. Second: the users' mobility, which requires the management of their position, is resource consuming (especially radio bandwidth). This paper focuses on the second issue and proposes an intelligent method for users locating: the alternative strategy (AS). Our proposal is based on the observation that the mobility behavior of a majority of people can be foretold. If taken into consideration by the system, this characteristic can save signaling messages due to mobility management procedures, leading thus to savings in the system resources. Several versions of the AS are described: a basic version for long term events (i.e., received calls and registrations), and versions with increased memory for short and medium term events. The evaluation of the basic versions was performed using analytic and simulation approaches. It shows that storing the mobility related information brings great savings in system resources when the users have medium or high predictable mobility patterns. More generally speaking, this work points out the fact that the future systems will have to integrate users related information in order: firstly: to provide customized services and secondly: to save system resources. On the other hand, current trends in mobile communications show that adaptive and dynamic system capabilities require that more information to be collected and computed.>