1. Course Project Topics for CSE5469
Chunyi Peng
Fall 2015

2. Project #1: From 4G to 4.5G and beyond
Survey new cellular network technologies for future mobile networks
E.g., PHY layer: carrier aggregation, massive MIMO
E.g., network architecture: NFV
Standard specifications (efforts from Industry)
Research progress (efforts from academy)
Potential issues or possible research topics
Team: 2 members
CSE5469 (Peng)

3. Project #2: All-in-one-Demo: Explore Cellular Networks at Hands
Developing a unified demo (android app) which allows users to replay identified problems in recent years
Data charging errors and attacks (CCS’14, CCS’12, NDSS’14)
Voice-data interference and VoLTE security (CCS’15, Mobicom’12, Mobicom’15)
Problematic protocol interactions (SIGCOMM’15)
Others in recent years
Build a demo framework with many options
Visualization (comparison)
Team: 2-3 members
CSE5469 (Peng)

4. Project #3: Boost App/TCP performance with explicit control info from cellular networks
Explicitly leverage PHY layer information or control information
Enable real-time control-info retrieval on the phone
Propose cross-layer optimization (for higher throughput, lower latency, less energy or others..)
Build a prototype and evaluate it
Team: 2-3 members
CSE5469 (Peng)

5. Project #4: Security in Cellular (4G) infrastructure
Project background
Area: cellular, security
LTE or LTE+WiFi (heterogeneous network)
Motivation: LTE is an all-IP network (converges to the Internet), but still maintains many cellular (telecommunication) features such as control, gateway, network structures
Example 1: unexpected mobile accounting (Mobicom’12, CCS’12, Mobisys’13, HotMobile’13, NDSS’14)
Example 2: CSFB [tu13-csfb], Mobicom’13
CSE5469 (Peng)

6. Possible Issues Survey on main security features provided in LTE
Difference from the Internet
Difference from the predecessors (3G/2G)
Identify several or at least one major loopholes either in design (standard) or in practice
Verification experiment
Security analysis and remedy
Note: It is an open research problem.
Note: It involves a large amount of 3GPP standard reading.
CSE5469 (Peng)

7. Project #5: Revisit Mobile Data Charging
Project background
Area: cellular, security
4G LTE/3G, or LTE+WiFi (heterogeneous network)
Current practice: usage-based pricing
Volume caps
Argument/proposals:
time-dependent pricing scheme (network congestion varies over time) (TUBE, Sigcomm’12 etc)
Accounting may not be accurate (Mobicom’12 etc)
Volume does not reflect value (app context, e.g., Ads in background traffic)
CSE5469 (Peng)

8. Possible Issues You can do either: Propose a new pricing scheme
Rational & Design
Evaluation via simulation and analysis
Map of billing traps for Andriod
Build a map and associated lookup service so that users can learn the potential billing traps in a given region.
Note: strong background in database and programming is required
Understand the true cost of various mobile apps
Free and paid versions (ad volume?)
Bursty traffic (web), long-term (video) and short long-lived (background)
Hint: quantify the difference in network usage, app context (protocol overhead), signaling, physical resources etc
Pricing for heterogeneous network (WiFi + Cellular)
CSE5469 (Peng)

9. Project #6: Access network choice: Cellular + WiFi + more
Project background
Area: cellular, wireless, networking
Heterogeneous network (WiFi + Cellular)
Possible issues:
Motivate fine-grained offloading by identifying the gain in opportunistic offloading (coarse rules can’t work well)
LTE is faster and WiFi is crowded
Coverage
Determine offloading policy
Propose the interface switch design
Impact of app (IP address change)
Prototyping or simulation for preliminary evaluation
CSE5469 (Peng)

10. Project #7: Video over Cellular
Video takes 70% traffic in mobile Internet
Calls for better user experience over cellular
Devise a new scheme to boost video streaming experience over cellular
CSE5469 (Peng)

11. Project #8: Define it
CSE5469 (Peng)

12. Questions? Follows-up: Please Form your team ASAP
Please start to pick and work on your course project early
CSE5469 (Peng)