Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Broadcasting a Means to Disseminate
Public Data in a Wireless Environment—
Issues and Solutions
A . R . H U R S O N , Y. J I A O
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802
USA
B . A . S H I R A Z I
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99163
USA
Abstract
In today's heavily networked society, there is an increasing demand for fast and
reliable access to information. It is believed that for many application domains,
the information superhighway contains much of the needed information and is
capable of delivering it at extremely high speeds. However, the information may
not be available at the users' fingertips. In other words, we no longer need to
question the availability of information; however, the information is not readily
accessible. What needed are means to:
Locate the relevant information intelligently, efficiently, and transparently;
Extract, process, and integrate relevant information efficiently and securely;
and
Interpret the processed information intelligently and efficiently.
Within this infrastructure, two types of services are available to the user: on-
demand base services and broadcast-based services. Private and shared data are
usually subject of on-demand-based services, while public data can be most ef-
fectively disseminated using broadcasting.
