Mobile Users are not Static Users on the Move

Abstract. This paper presents a measurement study of file system usage for a group of mobile devices users in different locations. The goal of this study is to dispell the idea that the behaviour of mobile systems can be modelled as being homogenous across various locations. The study shows that all volunteers access statistically significantly different sets of data as they move across locations. These results question the traditional way of evaluating mobile computing systems, which typically model the behavior of a user in different locations as being similar to her behavior in a single location for a longer period. 1