Analysis of movement and mobility of wireless network users

This paper describes a system developed for determining locations of devices on 802.11 wireless networks. Data representing 18,000 computers registered on Carnegie Mellon´s Wireless Andrew is presented from traces taken in 2003 and 2005. Developers make many assumptions when creating applications for wearable and pervasive computers. The data collected by Locator@CMU provides a clearer understanding of large-scale wireless networks and their usage for implementing services and programs. Among the findings, we examine the mobility of a user as defined by percentage of time spent at their home site and favorite sites. Our results show that only a small number of wireless users exhibit high mobility and our data suggests that typical mobile users utilize the network only in a handful of sites. These basic patterns have remained steady over the past two years.