IS Industries :: Communications :: Mobile and Wireless > Example Projects
Mobile Communications in the Future
MORE PROJECTS
Communicating on the move, not only convenient but also crucial to Europe's competitiveness will be the future. Therefore the European Union is funding a wide range of projects in this area, laying the ground for the future of Europe's dynamic communications industries.
Overview ¦ Relevant Policies ¦ Example Projects
SHAMAN: Enhancing Mobile Security
As the functionality and the possibilities of mobile communications
increase, security
and privacy are increasingly becoming a hot issue for users. The IST funded project assessed ways of improving security and the results have influenced international standards in wireless LAN,
Bluetooth and public key infrastructure.
Under the IST project SHAMAN, researchers focused on security infrastructures for two increasingly important aspects of mobile communications. First, the ability of the mobile user to roam globally and to connect to the network and its services, using various access networks including wireless LAN and Bluetooth. Second, the development of mobile terminals featuring wireless components. For mobile network services, the project explored security methods for payment. It developed non-subscription payment methods allowing users to roam between networks without having subscriptions to all of them. It’s a sort of automatic pay-as-you-go system via your own provider or by using a credit card or electronic purse.
SEMOPS: Mobile payments for anything, anywhere, anytime
The SEMOPS project deals with providing
secure electronic payment
solutions. Payment can be carried out with a mobile device or over the
internet using an innovative technology that addresses the challenges
the mobile payment domain poses and become a global mobile payment
service. The service allows real time payments for practically any kind
of transactions on mobile devices and the internet.
The approach used is based on the on the so-called credit push concept. Having selected the required goods the customer receives certain transaction related data from the merchant. Customers do not provide any sensitive data to the merchant during the payment process therefore they can practically remain anonymous during the payment process. Having received the necessary transaction details, the customer prepares and signs a payment request and forwards it to its own payment processor. If the necessary funds are available the merchant receives a payment notification a kind of guarantee from its own payment processor.
UCAN: Cutting cables the wireless way
Researchers of the IST project UCAN worked with one of the newest wireless technology Impulse-radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) and developed complete UWB system. IR-UWB may lead to self-organising wireless personal area networks, according to recent European tests.
The system works well up to 10 metres and offers ranging accuracy up to 15 centimetres in line of sight. Results suggest UWB could replace high-throughput cables. Operating up to 10 metres at 100Mb/s or double that rate over four metres, the technology could transfer data quickly between a laptop and a printer, or a DVD recorder and a TV set.
SecurePhone: Biometrics for secure mobile communications
As mobile devices play ever more significant roles in our lives,
ensuring
the trustworthiness and security of the information being
exchanged has never been more important. European researchers are
employing biometrics and digital signing to provide a solution. Though
biometrics security applications have been in use for some time, they
have only recently started to appear in mobile phones, PDAs and notebook
computers where the need for miniaturisation represents a technological
challenge.
So far biometric data has been used to tie the device to a person to
prevent it from being used illegitimately if lost or stolen. But the IST
project SecurePhone is taking a new approach, employing physical
attributes to enable the user to digitally sign audio, text or image
files, providing proof of their origin and authenticity.
The system is designed primarily for PDA-phones but could also be used
in new generation smart phones and WiFi-enabled PDAs.
Last Updated December 2006