Towards a model of seamless mobility - user value and security in computing, control, and communications

Seamless mobility is a term that encompasses a broad range of technologies and applications. It builds on technology developments in the wireless industry over the last 20 years, starting with mobile telephony, on through mobile IP, convergence of voice and data, and now towards an ever-increasing rate of convergence/collision between the worlds of secure communication, content, and computing. It is well accepted that in each of these domains, that there is exponential growth in capabilities, with a doubling of capabilities in communication technologies every 9 months, in memory technology (storage/content) every 12 months, and in computing technologies (processing) every 18 months. In this presentation, we begin by proposing a mathematical formulation in order to understand the relevant factors and as a means of clarifying the value of seamless mobility. Our model proposes an efficiency metric to represent this value. Intuitively, the maximum value of perfect seamless mobility can be intuitively understood as the value resulting from the maximum of processing and storage that is available to the user (by purchase or subscription), regardless of the environment where this processing and storage resides.