A Fresh Look At Low-Power Mobile Computing

Abstract We challenge the apparent consensus that next-generation mobile devices must necessarily provide resource-intensive capabilities such as Java interpreters to support advanced applications. Instead, we propose an architecture that exploits the high “last mile ” bandwidth in third generation wireless networks to enable the largest part of such applications to run inside a base station, effectively reducing the mobile device to a dumb terminal. We discuss some implications of this architecture, with respect to hand-off, confidentiality while roaming in potentially hostile networks, and the need for a server-transparent segmentation of applications into a computational and a user interface component. 1