This bachelor thesis explores the threat of Stingrays, fake cell towers, to the mobile network. The increasing availability of open-source technology and hardware has made it easier to build Stingrays. Stingrays can threaten the privacy and security of individuals and their devices, making it critical to understand the effectiveness and practicalities of the attack. This study evaluates the feasibility and the practical danger of Stingrays using open-source software and available hardware, filling a gap in research on the subject. First, a literature study was made to understand the mobile network, security vulnerabilities and existing countermeasures to achieve this. Thereon, a Stingray was constructed, and attacks were simulated with different settings and scenarios to determine their practical and effective use. The results show the possibility of Stingray attacks with the mentioned equipment, but underline the need for a more advanced system for real-world attacks. / Denna kandidatuppsats utforskar hotet från Stingrays, falska mobiltorn, på mobilnätet. Den ökande tillgängligheten av öppen-källkod teknologi och hårdvara har gjort det lättare att bygga Stingrays. Stingrays kan hota integriteten och säkerheten av individer och deras enheter, vilket gör det avgörande att förstå effektiviteten och praktikaliteter av attacken. Studiens mål är att utvärdera möjligheten och den praktiska faran med Stingrays genom att använda programvara med öppen källkod och tillgänglig hårdvara, vilket fyller en lucka i forskning inom ämnet. Först gjordes en litteraturstudie för att förstå mobila nätverket, säkerhetssårbarheter och befintliga motåtgärder för att uppnå detta. Därefter konstruerade vi en Stingray och simulerade attacker med olika inställningar och i olika scenarier för att avgöra deras praktiska och effektiva användning. Resultaten visar möjligheten av Stingray-attacker med den nämnda utrustningen men understryker behovet av ett mer advancerat system för verkliga attacker.

This Thesis is an embodiment of some research work carried out towards achieving faster and more reliable handover techniques in a Mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) network. Handover, also called handoff, is the critical mechanism that allows an ongoing session in a cellular mobile network like WiMAX to be seamlessly maintained without any call drop as the Mobile Station (MS) moves out of the coverage area of one base station (BS) to that of another. Mobile WiMAX supports three different types of handover mechanisms, namely, the hard handover, the Fast Base Station Switching (FBSS) and the Micro-Diversity Handover (MDHO). Out of these, the hard handover is the default handover mechanism whereas the other two are the optional schemes. Also, FBSS and MDHO provide better performance in comparison to hard handover, when it comes to dealing with the high-speed multimedia applications. However, they require a complex architecture and are very expensive to implement. So, hard handover is the commonly used technique accepted by the mobile broadband wireless user community including Mobile WiMAX users. The existing Mobile WiMAX hard handover mechanism suffers from multiple shortcomings when it comes to providing fast and reliable handovers. These shortcomings include lengthy handover decision process, lengthy and unreliable procedure of selecting the next BS, i.e., the target BS (TBS) for handover, occurrence of frequent and unwanted handovers, long connection disruption times (CDT), wastage of channel resources, etc. Out of these, reducing the handover latency and improving the handover reliability are the two issues that our present work has focused on. While the process of selecting the TBS for handover adds to the overall delay in completing the process of handover, choosing a wrong TBS for handover increases the chance of further unwanted handovers to occur or even a call drop to occur. The latter greatly hampers the reliability of a handover. In order to contribute to the solution of the above two problems of slow handover and unreliable handover, this Thesis proposes and investigates three handover techniques, which have been called Handover Techniques 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Out of these three techniques, the first two are fully MS-controlled while the third one is a dominantly serving BS-controlled. In Handover Techniques 1 and 2, which share between them some amount of commonness of ideas, the MS not only itself determines the need for a handover but also self-tracks its own independent movement with respect to the location of the (static) neighboring BSs (NBS). N both these handover techniques, the MS performs distance estimation of the NBSs from the signal strength received from the NBSs. But they (the two handover techniques) employ different kinds of “lookahead” techniques to independently choose, as the TBS, that NBS to which the MS is most likely to come nearest in the future. Being MS-controlled, both Handover Technique 1 and Handover Technique 2 put minimal handover-related workload on their respective SBSs who thus remain free to offer services to many more MSs. This interesting capability of the two handover techniques can increase the scalability of the WiMAX network considerably. In Handover Technique 3, which is a BS-controlled one with some assistance received from the MS, the SBS employs three different criteria or parameters to select the TBS. The first criterion, a novel one, is the orientation matching between the MS’s direction of motion and the geolocation of each NBS. The other two criteria are the current load of each NBS (the load provides an indication of a BS’s current QoS capabilities) and the signal strength received by the MS from each NBS. The BS assigns scores to each NBS against each of the three independent parameters and selects the TBS, which obtains the highest weighted average score among the NBSs. All three handover techniques are validated using simulation methods. While Handover Techniques 1 and 2 are simulated using Qualnet network simulator, for Handover Technique 3, we had to design, with barest minimum capability, our own simulation environment, using Python. Results of simulation showed that for Handover Techniques 1 and 2, it is possible to achieve around 45% improvement (approx) in the overall handover time by using the two proposed handover techniques. The emphasis in the simulation of the Handover Technique 3 was on studying its reliability in producing correct handovers rather than how fast handovers are. Five different arbitrary pre-defined movement paths of the MS were studied. Results showed that with orientation matching or orientation matching together with signal strength, reliability was extremely good, provided the pre-defined paths were reasonably linear. But reliability fell considerably when relatively large loads were also considered along with orientation matching and signal strength. Finally, the comparison between the proposed handover techniques in this Thesis and few other similar techniques in Mobile WiMAX proposed by other researchers showed that our techniques are better in terms providing fast, reliable and intelligent handovers in Mobile WiMAX networks, with scalability being an added feature.

One of the key requirements of fifth generation (5G) systems is having a connection to mobile networks without interruption at anytime and anywhere, which is also known as seamless connectivity. Nowadays, fourth generation (4G) systems, Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A), are mature enough to provide connectivity to most terrestrial mobile users. However, for airborne mobile users, there is no connection that exists without interruption. According to the regulations, mobile connectivity for aircraft passengers can only be established when the altitude of the aircraft is above 3000 m. Along with demands to have mobile connectivity during a flight and the seamless connectivity requirement of 5G systems, there is a notable interest in providing in-flight wireless services during all phases of a flight. In this thesis, many issues related to the deployment and operation of the onboard systems have been investigated. A measurement and modelling procedure to investigate radio frequency (RF) propagation inside an aircraft is proposed in this thesis. Unlike in existing studies for in-cabin channel characterization, the proposed procedure takes into account the deployment of a multi-cell onboard system. The proposed model is verified through another set of measurements where reference signal received power (RSRP) levels inside the aircraft are measured. The results show that the proposed model closely matches the in-cabin RSRP measurements. Moreover, in order to enforce the distance between a user and an interfering resource, cell sectorization is employed in the multi-cell onboard system deployment. The proposed propagation model is used to find an optimum antenna orientation that minimizes the interference level among the neighbouring evolved nodeBs (eNBs). Once the optimum antenna deployment is obtained, comprehensive downlink performance evaluations of the multi-cell, multi-user onboard LTE-A system is carried out. Techniques that are proposed for LTE-A systems, namely enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (eICIC) and carrier aggregation (CA), are employed in the system analysis. Different numbers of eNBs, antenna mounting positions and scheduling policies are examined. A scheduling algorithm that provides a good tradeoff between fairness and system throughput is proposed. The results show that the downlink performance of the proposed onboard LTE-A system achieves not only 75% of the theoretical limits of the overall system throughput but also fair user data rate performance, irrespective of a passenger's seat location. In order to provide the seamless connectivity requirement of 5G systems, compatibility between the proposed onboard system deployment and the already deployed terrestrial networks is investigated. Simulation based analyses are carried out to investigate power leakage from the onboard systems while the aircraft is in the parked position on the apron. According to the regulations, the onboard system should not increase the noise level of the already deployed terrestrial system by 1 dB. Results show that the proposed onboard communication system can be operated while the aircraft is in the parked position on the apron without exceeding the 1 dB increase in the noise level of the already deployed terrestrial 4G network. Furthermore, handover parameters are obtained for different transmission power levels of both the terrestrial and onboard systems to make the transition from one system to another without interruption while a passenger boards or leaves the aircraft. Simulation and measurement based analyses show that when the RSRP level of the terrestrial system is below -65 dBm around the aircraft, a boarding passenger can be smoothly handed over to the onboard system and vice versa. Moreover, in order to trigger the handover process without interfering with the data transmission, a broadcast control channel (BCCH) power boosting feature is proposed for the in-cabin eNBs. Results show that employing the BCCH power boosting feature helps to trigger the handover process as soon as the passengers step on board the aircraft.

As wireless communications is becoming an increasingly important part of ourevery day lives, the amount of transmitted data is constantly growing, creating ademand for ever-increasing data rates. One of the technologies used for boostingdata rates is carrier aggregation, which allows for wireless units to combine multipleconnections to the cellular network. However, there is a limited number ofpossible combinations defined, meaning that there is a need to search for the bestcombination in any given setup. This thesis introduces software capable of organizingthe defined combinations into tree structures, simplifying the search foroptimal combinations as well as allowing for visualizations of the connectionspossible. In the thesis, a proposed method of creating these trees is presented,together with suggestions on how to visualize important combination characteristics.Studies has also been made on different tree traversal algorithms, showingthat there is little need for searching through all possible combinations, but thata greedy approach has a high performance while substantially limiting the searchcomplexity. / I samband med att trådlösa kommunikationssystem blir en allt större del av våraliv och mängden data som skickas fortsätter att stiga, skapas en efterfrågan förökade datatakter. En av teknologierna som används för att skapa högre datatakterär bäraraggregering (carrier aggregation), som möjliggör för trådlösa enheteratt kombinera flertalet uppkopplingar mot det mobila nätverket. Det finns dockbara ett begränsat antal kombinationer definierade, vilket skapar ett behov av attsöka upp den bästa kombinationen i varje givet tillfälle. Detta arbete introducerarmjukvara som organiserar dessa kombinationer i trädstrukturer, vilket förenklarsökning efter optimala kombinationer tillsammans med möjligheten att visualiserade potentiella uppkopplingarna. I arbetet presenteras en föreslagen metodför att skapa dessa träd, tillsammans med uppslag på hur viktiga egenskaperhos kombinationerna kan visualiseras. Olika trädsökningsalgoritmer har ocksåundersökts, och det visas att det inte är nödvändigt att söka igenom hela träd.Istället visar sig giriga algoritmer ha hög prestanda, samtidigt som sökstorlekenkan hållas kraftigt begränsad.

Fourth Generation (4G) cellular technology Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) offers high data rate capabilities to mobile users; and, operators are trying to deliver a true mobile broadband experience over LTE networks. Mobile TV and Video on Demand (VoD) are expected to be the main revenue generators in the near future [36] and efficient video streaming over wireless is the key to enabling this. 3GPP recommends the use of H.264 baseline profiles for all video based services in Third Generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) networks. However, LTE networks need to support mobile devices with different display resolution requirements like small resolution mobile phones and high resolution laptops. Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is required to achieve this goal. Feasibility study of SVC for LTE is one of the main agenda of 3GPP Release10. SVC enhances H.264 with a set of new profiles and encoding tools that may be used to produce scalable bit streams. Efficient adaptation methods for SVC video transmission over LTE networks are proposed in this thesis. Advantages of SVC over H.264 are analyzed using real time use cases of mobile video streaming. Further, we study the cross layer adaptation and scheduling schemes for delivering SVC video streams most efficiently to the users in LTE networks in unicast and multicast transmissions. We propose SVC based video streaming scheme for unicast and multicast transmissions in the downlink direction, with dynamic adaptations and a scheduling scheme based on channel quality information from users. Simulation results indicate improved video quality for more number of users in the coverage area and efficient spectrum usage with the proposed methods.

In the LTE mobile system, all cells use the same set of frequencies. This means that a user could experience interference from other cells. A method that has been studied in order to reduce this interference and thereby increase data rate or system throughput is to coordinate scheduling between cells. Good results of this have been found in different studies. However, the interference is generally assumed to be known. Studies using estimated interference and simulating more than one cluster of cells have found almost no gain. This thesis will focus on how to use information from coordinated scheduling and other traffic estimates to do better interference estimation and link adaption. The suggested method is to coordinate larger clusters and use the coordination information, as well as estimates of which cells will be transmitting, to make estimates of interference from other cells. The additional information from interference estimation is used in the link adaptation. Limitations in bandwidth of the backhaul needed to send data between cells are considered, as well as the delay it may introduce. A limitation of the scope is that MIMO or HetNet scenarios have not been simulated. The suggested method for interference estimation and link adaptation have been implemented and simulated in a system simulator. The method gives a less biased estimate of SINR, but there are no gains in user bit rate. The lesser bias is since the method is better at predicting high SINR than the base estimate is. The lack of gains regarding user bit rate may result from the fact that in the studied scenarios, users where not able to make use of the higher estimated SINR since the base estimate is already high. The conclusion is that the method might be useful in scenarios where there are not full load, but the users either have bad channel quality or are able to make use of very high SINR. Such scenarios could be HetNet or MIMO scenarios, respectively.

Fourth Generation (4G) cellular technology Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) offers high data rate capabilities to mobile users; and, operators are trying to deliver a true mobile broadband experience over LTE networks. Mobile TV and Video on Demand (VoD) are expected to be the main revenue generators in the near future [36] and efficient video streaming over wireless is the key to enabling this. 3GPP recommends the use of H.264 baseline profiles for all video based services in Third Generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) networks. However, LTE networks need to support mobile devices with different display resolution requirements like small resolution mobile phones and high resolution laptops. Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is required to achieve this goal. Feasibility study of SVC for LTE is one of the main agenda of 3GPP Release10. SVC enhances H.264 with a set of new profiles and encoding tools that may be used to produce scalable bit streams. Efficient adaptation methods for SVC video transmission over LTE networks are proposed in this thesis. Advantages of SVC over H.264 are analyzed using real time use cases of mobile video streaming. Further, we study the cross layer adaptation and scheduling schemes for delivering SVC video streams most efficiently to the users in LTE networks in unicast and multicast transmissions. We propose SVC based video streaming scheme for unicast and multicast transmissions in the downlink direction, with dynamic adaptations and a scheduling scheme based on channel quality information from users. Simulation results indicate improved video quality for more number of users in the coverage area and efficient spectrum usage with the proposed methods.

Objetive: To evaluate if the 4G/5G polymorphism of the plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 gene is likely to lead to increase risk of thromboembolic neurological complications and that these complications will increase length of mechanical ventilation and length of stay.Design: Prospective, case-control study. Setting: A 14 bed surgical intensive care unit of a university hospital.Patients: 260 consecutive patients who underwent cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass and 111 controls were enrolled.Interventions: DNA was isolated and 4G/5G polymorphism was typed using RFLP methodology. Measurements and results: Genetic analysis revealed 4G/5G in 131 patients (50.4%), 5G/5G genotype in 82 (31.5%), and 4G/4G in only 47 (18.1%). Prevalence of neurological complications was 20.8% (n= 54) [stroke 5.4% (n= 14) and encephalopathy 15.4% (n= 40)]. A two-fold increase in stroke (8.5% vs 4.7%; RR 1.9, 95% CI 0.7 to 6.3) and encephalopathy (27.7% vs 12.7%; RR 2.6, 95% CI 1.2 to 5.6) was documented in 4G/4G carriers. Multivariate analysis showed that development of stroke or encephalopathy was independently associated with prolonged mechanical ventilation (OR 20, 95% CI 1.2 to 5.6) and that neurological complication (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.1 to 5.5) and 4G/4G genotype (OR 2.6, 95% CI 1.1 to 6.5) were independently associated with prolonged hospital length of stay ≥ 2 weeks. Conclusions: The 4G/4G genotype could increase the risk of thromboembolic neurological complications after cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary by-pass. The neurological complications resulted in longer time on ventilator and longer hospital stay. / A consecuencia del carácter poligénico de las patologías que nos ocupan hace poco probable que un solo polimorfismo pueda explicar todas las complicaciones postoperatorias. Sin embargo, debemos subrayar que esta variación genética pudiera ser un factor de riesgo más que sumado a los ya referidos hiciera más probable la aparición de complicaciones neurológicas. A través del desarrollo de este tipo de complicaciones pudiera explicarse coherentemente que los pacientes estuvieran más tiempo bajo ventilación mecánica y fueran dados de alta más tardíamente del hospital. En definitiva, si futuros estudios confirmasen los presentes hallazgos, y los pacientes homocigotos 4G/4G (junto otros polimorfismos que puedan describirse en el futuro) pudieran considerarse de alto riesgo, la evaluación de estas variables genéticas podrían identificar precozmente pacientes en los cuales realizar una investigación preoperatorio más exhaustiva y considerar, cuando sea posible, la realización de técnicas quirúrgicas alternativas además de añadir información individual sobre el riesgo quirúrgico. Por tanto, nuestro estudio, además de aportar otra variable en el puzzle de etiopatogenia de las complicaciones neurológicas en el postoperatorio de cirugía cardiaca sugiere la consideración de de factores genéticos como marcadores o estratificadores de riesgo perioperatorio.

Avec l'introduction des standards de communication de quatrième génération (4G) dans la téléphonie mobile, les bandes de fréquence dans lesquelles un téléphone mobile générique doit fonctionner ont naturellement augmenté. Ces évolutions ont induit de nouveaux challenges techniques notamment en ce qui concerne la conception des modules d'émission-réception, du frontal RF mais surtout des antennes. Les bandes de fréquences nouvellement ajoutées, en particulier les bandes LTE 12/13/17 qui descendent jusqu'à 700 MHz, constituent le défi antennaire majeur: couvrir la bande basse des 700-960MHz (30%) notamment en incluant la bande GSM850/900 compte tenu de la rétrocompatibilité avec les standards 3G. Étant donné que l'espace réservé pour l'antenne dans un terminal portatif est électriquement petit (dans cette gamme de fréquences basses), des techniques de conception spécifiques doivent être mises en œuvre pour pouvoir couvrir toute la bande de fréquence basse. Dans la phase de conception, il doit également être pris en compte le fait que l'antenne ou les antennes puissent incorporer des techniques d'amélioration de débit de données telles que le MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) et l'agrégation de porteuse (Carrier Aggregation) pour le LTE-Advanced. De plus, si l'on considère des cas d'utilisation réalistes, les effets de l'utilisateur (main, tête) sur les performances globales du terminal doivent aussi être examinés. Dans cette thèse, plusieurs concepts d'antennes 4G pour les futurs terminaux mobiles sont proposés. Différentes topologies antennaires sont évaluées notamment des antennes reconfigurables / passives ainsi que des structures à alimentation simples/multiples

Communication by wireless technologies has seen a tremendous growth in the last decades. Mobile phone technology and wireless broadband solutions are rapidly replacing the last-hop wireline connectivity for telephones and Internet access.  Research has, however, shown that Internet traffic can experience a performance degradation over wireless compared to wired networks.  The inherent properties of radio communication lead to a higher degree of unreliability, compared to communication by wire or fiber.  This can result in an increased amount of transmission errors, packet loss, delay and delay variations, which in turn affect the performance of the main Internet transport protocols TCP and UDP.  This dissertation examines the cross-layer relationship between wireless transmission and the resulting performance on the transport layer. To this end, experimental evaluations of TCP and UDP over a wireless 4G downlink system proposal are performed.  The experiment results show, in a holistic scenario, that link-level adaptive modulation, channel prediction, fast persistent link retransmissions, and channel scheduling, enables the transport protocols TCP and UDP to perform well and utilize the wireless link efficiently.  Further, a novel approach is proposed where a modified TCP receiver can choose to accept packets that are corrupted by bit errors. Results from network emulation experiments indicate that by accepting and acknowledging even small amounts of corrupted data, a much higher throughput can be maintained compared to standard TCP.