<p>Background: Forecasting is an instrument that the managers rely upon for their anticipations of the future. Subcontractors control their operations according to the forecast volumes provided by the telecom mobile network equipment suppliers. The information in the forecasts is however not sufficient. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to identify and test relevant and available market indicators for prediction of future demand fluctuations on the telecom mobile network equipment market. </p><p>Realisation: During a number of interviews, factors that are driving the network equipment market were clarified. The aim of this part was to identify possible market indicators. Hypotheses were set up to test the chosen indicators. In the second part, the indicators were tested statistically. Finally, the theoretical and logical support of the results was discussed. </p><p>Result: To predict future movements in network equipment demand, the market indicators should focus on the telecom mobile operators, and their ability, need, and willingness to make new investments. The market indicators proven to be of most importance after the regression analyses were long-term market interest rates and telecom corporate bond indices.</p>

Recent rapid advancements in mobile communication and emerging demands for complicated multimedia content and services over mobile systems have caused a dramatic increase in research interest in this area. Among the topics covering multimedia service performance over the wireless interface, the quality of received multimedia content is an important issue. With the increase of visual media in mobile services, user opinion acquired through perception of received image quality will play an increasingly important role in determining the effectiveness of such services. The work documented in this thesis is motivated by the general lack of published work on software test beds for Third Generation Mobile Network (3G) and in particular for investigating mobile environment multimedia quality degradation. A 3G multimedia quality analysis system is presented, subjecting the input multimedia stream to the simulated 3G radio activities and measuring its degradation in terms of human perception. This approach takes a new and different model of multimedia quality measurement in a wireless communication domain, showing the possibility of a more effective approach that can be applied in many cases for assisting service quality assurance research across this area. The development of this software system is covered in detail together with in-depth analysis of multimedia image quality over a simulated 3G radio interface. Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is the 3G standard chosen for study in this work. The suggested test bed simulates a single Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) downlink UMTS Territorial Radio Access (UTRA) channel, where the received media's image analysis is performed using a Human Vision System (HVS) based image quality metric. The system aims to provide a multipurpose and versatile multimedia 3G test bed for use in testing of various solutions for protecting multimedia data across a 3G radio interface. Furthermore, it produces effective human vision oriented feedback on visual media degradation, providing a new and efficient method to address effectiveness of solutions in multimedia delivery over a mobile environment. This thesis shows the ability of HVS-based image quality metric in analyzing degradation of visual media over a noisy mobile environment. This presents a novel direction in the area of telecommunication service multimedia quality analysis, with potential user quality perception being considered on top of data or signal-based error measurements. With such a new approach, development of multimedia protection solutions can be made more effective. Effective feedback provided by considering quality measurement with strong correlation to human perception allows close analysis of user visual discrimination across an image. An example of the usefulness of this information is especially visible if considering development of a content-based multimedia data protective system that provides different levels of protection, depending on the importance of visual media. An apparent potential application of this thesis is in the testing of a multimedia/image protection protocol in a downlink channel. Future work might aim to extend the current system by adding network level traffic simulations and further addition of dynamic network control components, further considering network traffic conditions.

Vehicles will use pseudonyms instead of relying on long-term certificates to provide security and privacy. Pseudonyms are short-term public key certificates that do not contain identity-linking information about the vehicle. However, there is a constant risk that authorised vehicles may send fake messages or behave selfishly, and this can affect the performance of the Vehicular Ad hoc NETwork (VANET). In this context, trust management is another important component of security services in VANETs, which provides a unified system for establishing a relationship between the nodes and helps by keeping record of the behaviour of the vehicles. Nevertheless, it is a challenging task to monitor the evolving pattern of the vehicular behaviour, since communication between the vehicles is anonymous. It is not easy to find a balanced solution that meets the requirements of security, privacy, and trust management in VANET. In view of this, we put forward a Preserving-Privacy Reputation Scheme (PPRS) applied to VANETs, in which a reputation server through a Roadside Unit receives feedback about the behaviour of the vehicles. The server updates and certifies the reputation of the vehicles by matching their anonymous identities with their real ones. Our scheme introduces geographical areas of security, in which the security of an area can be adapted to higher or lower levels depending on the reputation of the vehicles. In addition, complex reputation is examined, in which the reputation of a vehicle is linked to several behavioural factors. A further key area that is explored is the performance evaluation of PPRS which is conducted through a set of simulations in a grid scenario, based on an opportunistic message forwarding application. The results showed the effectiveness of PPRS in terms of assessing the behaviour of the vehicles and taking measures against the misbehaving vehicles. We used SUMO to simulate the mobility model; OMNET++ and Veins supported the simulation of the network model. In addition, Crypto++ was used to implement the elliptical curve cryptographic functions of signature and verification of messages, as recommended by the security standards. Finally, we employ a pseudonym changing strategy in which the reputation is discretised at two levels of reputation. The strategy was implemented in a realistic traffic simulation scenario, and was compared with the so called status and synchronous strategies through a serie of simulations. The results showed that the number of pseudonyms used in our strategy is lower than the strategies mentioned above, and maintains the rate of success of changing pseudonym achieved by the synchronous strategy. / Os veículos usarão pseudônimos em vez de certificados de longo prazo para fornecer segurança e privacidade. Os pseudônimos são certificados de chaves públicas de curto prazo que não contêm informação da identidade do veículo. No entanto, existe risco que veículos autorizados possam enviar mensagens falsas ou se comportar de maneira egoísta, e isso pode afetar o desempenho das redes veiculares (VANETs). Nesse contexto, o gerenciamento de confiança é um importante serviço de segurança nas VANETs, o qual fornece um sistema unificado para estabelecer relações entre os nós e ajuda a manter um registro do comportamento dos veículos. No entanto, é uma tarefa desafiante monitorar o padrão evolutivo do comportamento veicular, já que a comunicação entre os veículos é anônima. Não é uma tarefa fácil encontrar uma solução equilibrada que atenda aos requisitos de segurança, privacidade e gerenciamento de confiança em VANET. Em vista disso, apresentamos um Esquema de Reputação Preservando a Privacidade (ERPP) aplicado a VANETs, no qual um servidor de reputação através de uma unidade de acostamento recebe avaliações sobre o comportamento dos veículos. O servidor atualiza e certifica a reputação dos veículos relacionando seus identidades anônimas com as reais. ERPP introduz áreas geográficas de segurança, na qual a segurança de uma área pode ser adaptada a níveis mais elevados ou mais baixos dependendo da reputação dos veículos. Além, uma reputação complexa é examinada, na qual a reputação de um veículo está vinculada a vários fatores do comportamento. Uma outra área que é explorada é a avaliação de desempenho do ERPP o qual é conduzida através de simulações em um cenário urbano, com base na aplicação de encaminhamento oportunista de mensagens. Os resultados mostraram a eficácia do ERPP em termos de avaliar o comportamento dos veículos e tomar medidas contra os veículos mal comportados. Utilizamos SUMO para simular o modelo de mobilidade; OMNET++ e Veins suportaram o modelo de red; and Crypto++ foi usado para implementar as funções criptográficas de curvas elípticas de assinatura e verificação de mensagens como recomendam os padrões de segurança. Finalmente, empregamos uma estratégia de mudança de pseudônimo na qual a reputação é discretizada em dois níveis de reputação. A estratégia foi implementada em um cenário de simulação de tráfego realista e foi comparada com as estratégias nomeadas de estado e síncrona mediante simulações. Os resultados mostraram que o número de pseudônimos utilizados em nossa estratégia é menor que os esquemas mencionados, e mantém a taxa de sucesso de mudança de pseudônimo alcançada pela estratégia síncrona.

Ce travail de thèse repose sur les intrications entre deux domaines : celui des transports et celui des télécommunications. L’usage intensif et quotidien des réseaux entraîne de la part des acteurs de chacun des domaines des besoins d’analyse pour assurer et garantir la qualité des services fournis aux usagers. Nous nous proposons alors de fournir aux acteurs du transport des mesures des déplacements réalisées à partir de données de signalisation qu’ils pourront traiter avec leur connaissance métier et prendre des décisions sur des sujets étendus allant de l’aménagement du territoire à l’opération des réseaux de transports. Les méthodologies de mesure de déplacements présentées sont basées sur l’exploitation de traces numériques dans les réseaux mobiles. Ces traces sont le reflet de l’usage d’un réseau de télécommunications et existent à des fins d’opération. Les méthodes proposées ici trouvent leur fondement dans notre connaissance du fonctionnement de la téléphonie mobile et sur le traitement des énormes volumes de données que génèrent les terminaux mobiles quotidiennement en tout endroit opéré par Orange. Nous verrons que l’activité de ces terminaux embarqués au niveau de l’individu permettent d’estimer des attributs des déplacements, des volumes par paires origine-destination, des indicateurs de qualité de service ou encore de quantifier des facteurs explicatifs de choix de déplacements. Les relations d’usage explorées au travers de cette signalisation mobile offrent également la possibilité de caractériser l’usage du sol / This work stands on the close relationship that exists between two areas one use every day, namely transportation and telecommunications. Due to a daily and intensive usage of both networks, actors of each area raise up some needs to ensure delivered services and their quality to their end-users. Then, we propose to the actor of transportation measurement of performed trips that can be treated with the knowledge of the transportation actors trade in order to ease the decision making process on matters that go from land uses up to network operation. The methodologies presented here from trip measurement are based on the exploitation of the digital footprints that are fund within a telecommunication network. Those footprints are reflecting how the network is used and already exist for operating purposes. The methods proposed in this work result from our knowledge of the telecommunication mechanisms and the huge amount of data that are generated at every time and every place where Orange is operating. We introduce that mobile equipment embedded onto individuals of whom we capture their activity can lead to estimate trips attributes, origin-destination trip tables, quality of service indicators and quantification of explain factor of trip choices. We also show how the mining of usage relationship through signaling data can lead to the characterization of land use

La demande en énergie dans les réseaux de téléphonie mobile augmente en raison de l’émergence de nouvelles technologies et de nouveaux services aux exigences de plus en plus élevées (débits de données, délais, etc.). Dans ce contexte, l'opérateur de réseau mobile (ORM) doit fournir d'avantage de ressources radio et de capacité de traitement dans son réseau, entraînant ainsi des coûts financiers plus élevés. L’ORM n’a pas d’autre choix que de mettre en œuvre des stratégies d’économie d’énergie sur plusieurs niveaux de son infrastructure, notamment au niveau du réseau d’accès radio (RAN).En parallèle, le réseau électrique devient plus intelligent, avec de nouvelles fonctionnalités pour équilibrer l'offre et la demande en faisant varier les prix de l'électricité, permettant ainsi à certains agrégateurs d'énergie de faire partie du processus d'approvisionnement et en signant des accords de réponse à la demande avec ses clients les plus important. Dans le contexte d'un réseau électrique intelligent et fiable, l'ORM, qui compte des milliers de evolved NodeB (eNB) répartis sur tout le pays, doit jouer un rôle majeur dans le réseau en agissant en tant que consommateur potentiel capable de vendre de l'électricité. Toutefois, dans les pays d'Afrique subsaharienne, le réseau peut ne pas être fiable, voire même inexistant, l'ORM n'a d'autre choix que de déployer une centrale électrique virtuelle (VPP) qui l'alimente partiellement ou totalement.Dans cette thèse, nous étudions les interactions entre l’opérateur de réseau et le réseau électrique, qu’il soit fiable ou non, dans les pays développés comme dans les pays en cours de développement. Nous étudions la gestion optimale de l'énergie à long et à court terme, dans le but de minimiser le coût total de possession (TCO) en énergie de l'opérateur par station de base, qui correspond à la somme de ses dépenses d'investissement (CAPEX) et de ses dépenses opérationnelles (OPEX), en assurant la satisfaction des besoins croissants en trafic de ses utilisateurs dans la cellule.L'étude à long terme nous permet de prendre des décisions d'investissement semestrielles pour le dimensionnement de la batterie et des sources énergies renouvelables, en tenant compte de la dégradation des performances des équipements, des prévisions de la croissance du trafic des utilisateurs et de l'évolution du marché de l'électricité sur une longue période de temps comptée en années.Dans le cas où elle est alimentée par un réseau intelligent fiable, la politique à court terme aide l’opérateur à définir quotidiennement une stratégie de gestion optimale de la batterie assurant l'arbitrage ou à le trading d’électricité tout en exploitant les fluctuations horaires des prix de l’électricité afin de minimiser la facture énergétique journalière de l'ORM tout en respectant certaines règles d'utilisation de ces équipements.Dans le cas d'un réseau électrique non fiable ou complètement inexistant, l'opérateur est alimenté par des sources hybrides couplant stockage (batteries), générateurs diesel, énergie solaire et le réseau électrique si ce dernier est opérationnel. Ici, nous définissons un ordre de priorité fixe sur l’utilisation de ces sources qui vise à étendre la durée de vie de la batterie et maintenir ses performances / The energy demand in mobile networks is increasing due to the emergence of new technologies and new services with higher requirements (data rates, delays, etc). In this context, the Mobile Network Operator (MNO) has to provide more radio and processing resources in its network leading for higher financial costs. The MNO has no choice but to implement energy saving strategies in all the parts of its infrastructure and especially at the Radio Access Network (RAN).At the same time, the electrical grid is getting smarter including new functionalities to balance supply and demand by varying the electricity prices, allowing some aggregators to be part of the supply process and signing demand response agreements with its clients. In the context of reliable smart grid, the MNO having thousands of evolved NodeB (eNB) spread over all the country, has to play major role in the grid by acting as a prosumer able to sell electricity. In African Sub-Saharan countries however, the grid may be not reliable or even non existent, the MNO has no choice but to deploy a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and rely partially or totally on it.In this thesis, we study the interactions between the network operator and the grid either reliable or not in both developed and developing countries. We investigate both long term and short term optimal energy related management, with the aim of minimising the operator's Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for energy per base station which is the sum of its Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and Operational Expenditure (OPEX) while satisfying the growing needs of its user traffic in the cell.The long term study enables us to make semestral based investment decisions for the battery and renewable energy sources dimensioning considering equipment performance degradation, predictions on users traffic growth and electricity market evolution over a long period of time counted in years.In the case of being powered by a reliable smart grid, the short term policy helps the operator to set on a daily basis, an optimal battery management strategy by performing electricity arbitrage or trading that takes advantage of the electricity prices hourly fluctuations in order to minimize the MNO daily energy bill while respecting some rules on the usage of its equipments.In the case of a non reliable or off-grid environment, the operator is powered by hybrid sources coupling storage, diesel generators, solar power and the grid if the latter is operational. Here, we define a fixed order of priority on the use of these sources that extends the battery lifetime and maintain its performance

Magister Legum - LLM / This paper analyses how the Zimbabwean economic history has led to the perception and attitude of the population towards the financial industry. It has been blighted by extremes to the extent that in 2008 the Zimbabwe economy had one of the highest hyperinflation rate in the world.1 Pettinger sums up the hyperinflation journey of Zimbabwe as having begun in the 1990s shortly after the disastrous land reform.2 This is where private farms were grabbed from landowners and re-allocated to mostly peasant farmers who had no technical know-how in farming. It was also a time when the country was involved in an unbudgeted and unsolicited second Congo civil war necessitating that the Government increase salaries to cater for soldiers and other officials assigned to the Congo.3 Earlier on the government had buckled under pressure from former war liberators (war veterans) and paid out unbudgeted bonuses.4

The thesis deals with the topic of mobile network diagnostics, different methods applicable for this purpose and methodology for technical diagnostics and consequent error mitigation or mobile network optimisation. Service commonly offered by mobile networks and their quality of service requirements and analysis methods are described.

Thesis deals with data technology, which can be used for communication between mobile and IP networks. The aim of the project is to design data communication and the subsequent implementation of the mobile and IP networks. First of all, it made an introduction to telecommunications systems with focus on GSM. Subsequently, the work examines data provided by GSM technology standard with a focus on GPRS, which is in the other chapters discusses in more detail. The resulting communication application protocol is designed in two versions, which is achieved by the creation of an autonomous system. Communication is implemented using JAVA programming language, which created an application client, server and implemented application protocol. Client application is tested on a mobile phone with Internet connection with support for GPRS technology. Server application is installed on a PC workstation, which is assigned a public IP address, it is easily addressable from the Internet.

The master’s thesis describes IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) in terms of IMS core ele- ments (functional description, different implementation, signaling etc.) Communication protocols SIP and DIAMETER, together with SNMP protocol, which is used for collecting data are briefly described in this thesis.Thesis is also describing various IMS projects to- gether with Open IMS project, for whom was this surveillance system designed. Next part deals with architecture design of surveillance system along with management options implemented in surveillance system for users and administrators. The main part of master’s thesis deals with the description of the surveillance system for the experimental school Open IMS network and describes the remote configuration of core elements and monitoring of network traffic, together with the monitoring servers performance. The most of the data in the designed surveillance system are processed into graphs, which are regularly updated. The final part of master’s thesis describes the configuration and implementation of monitoring tools MRTG and NfSen that were used in created web based surveillance system.

Wide area cellular mobile networks have rapidly evolved over the years. In the beginning achieving wide area coverage was a great achievement – enabling subscribers to call from wherever they were currently located and whenever they wanted. Additionally these systems supported mobility of subscribers, so that calls could continue even while a subscriber moved from one cell to another. Today mobility management is something everyone takes for granted. New functionality is continuously being developed for these networks. An important aspect of this evolution has been to enable new applications and technologies to be introduced while maintaining interoperability with the existing technologies. These mobile networks use new technologies and enable new applications, but they interconnect with existing networks that utilize earlier technologies, such as the existing fixed telephone network. These interconnections enable communication between subscribers connected via all of these networks. In today’s mobile networks there are a variety of technologies working side by side, for example 2G, GPRS, 3G, and so on. The earlier networks used circuit switching technology, but the trend in later networks was to transition exclusively to packet switching. One of the most important network entities is the mobile switch center (MSC). In the earlier circuit switched networks the MSC is the heart of the circuit switching network. The MSC is responsible for management, control, and communication to and from the mobile stations (MSs) in the area managed by the MSC. The MSC stores information about each of the MSs in one or more databases. In the subscriber’s home network the information about their subscription is stored in a home location register (HLR), while when this subscriber is in another network information is stored in a visitor location register (VLR). The MSC together with other elements of the core network handles mobility management, enabling both handover and roaming. A gateway MSC enables MSs to communicate with phones connected to the fixed network. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the traffic situation for Kulyab region in order to configure and install the MSC in Kulyab. For the time being there is no radio network controller (RNC) in Kulyab region, so the MSC in Kulyab will be configured to support 2G traffic. The configuration will be based on the expected mobile traffic load in the Kulyab region, thus the first steps in the process were to collect and analyze data about the existing traffic in this region that is currently served by a MSC located outside of this region. The configuration of the new MSC will be based on this analysis. After installing and configuring the new MSC some question need to be answered, namely: Can the MSC in Kulyab support all the base stations in Kulyab region? If not, how many base stations can it support? To what extent does the addition of this new MSC improve the overall network in terms of increased reliability, capacity, and throughput? How much will the capacity of the existing MSC, that is responsible for traffic outside Dushanbe, be increased due to the introduction of the new MSC? / Den mobila täckningen har utvecklats snabbt under åren. Att uppnå den mobila täckningen var i början en stor prestation – att kunna erbjuda telefontjänster för abonnenterna var än de befann sig och när de ville. Förutom detta så stödde detta system också fri rörlighet för abonnenterna. Under ett samtal kunde de förflytta sig från en cell till ett annan utan att samtalet bröts. Nu är mobilitetshanteringen någonting självklart. Nya funktioner utvecklas ständigt för dessa nätverk. En viktig aspekt för utvecklingen är att möjliggöra så att nya applikationer och teknologier kan introduceras och fortfarande vara kompatibla med de existerande teknikerna. Dessa mobilnätverk använder nya tekniker och möjliggör nya applikationer som är kompatibla med det existerande nätverket. Det existerande nätverket använder sig av tidigare teknologier, så som den fasta telefonnätet. Detta möjliggör kommunikation mellan abonnenterna från olika nätverk. I dagens nätverk finns det ett antal olika nätverk, som t.ex. 2G, GPRS, 3G och så vidare. Det tidigare nätverket använde sig av kretskopplad teknik, men trenden är attuteslutande använda sig av paketkopplad teknik. En av de viktigaste nätverksenheterna är ”Mobile switch center” (MSC). I de tidigare kretskopplade nätverket är MSC hjärtat i det kretskopplade nätverket. MSC är ansvarig för hanteringen, kontrollen och kommunikation till och från demobila enheterna (MS) i området som kontrolleras av MSCn. MSC lagrar information om var och en av MS i ett eller flera databaser. I abonnentens hemnätverk finns information om abonnentens abonnemang i ett hemregister (HLR). När abonnenten befinner sig i ett annat nätverk lagras informationen i ett gästregister (VLR). MSC hanterar mobilitet tillsammans med andra nätverksenheter i ”Core network” (CN) och möjliggör överlämnande (handover) och roaming. ”Gateway MSC” GMSC möjliggör kommunikation mellan MS och det fasta nätverket. Syftet med examensarbetet är att analysera trafiken för Kulyab-regionen för att konfigurera och installera en MSC i Kulyab. För tillfället finns ingen ”Radio network controller” (RNC) i regionen Kulyab, så MSCn i Kulyab kommer att konfigureras för att stödja 2G trafik. Konfigurationen baseras på den förväntade belastningen av mobiltrafiken i Kulyab-regionen, följaktligen är det första steget i processen att samla ihop och analysera information om den existerande trafiken i Kulyab-regionen. Trafiken tillhörande Kulyab-regionen handskas för närvarande av en MSC som befinner sig utanför detta område. Konfigurationen av den nya MSCn kommer att baseras på denna analys. Efter installationen och konfigurationen av den nya MSCn kommer följande frågor att bli besvarade, nämligen: Kan MSCn i Kulyab stödja alla basstationerna i Kulyab regionen? Om inte, hur många basstationer kan MSCn stödja? Till vilken grad kommer den nya MSCn att förbättra nätverket i termer av ökad tillförlitlighet, kapacitet och trafikgenomströmning? Hur mycket kommer kapacitetsökningen för den existerande MSC utanför Dushanbe att öka då MSC i Kulyab installeras?