Wireless Consortium at UCLA Tackles Security, Reliability Problems

Bringing industry together with researchers to tackle such challenges as security and reliability presented by the wireless Internet is the goal of a new Wireless Consortium, according to Rajit Gadh, consortium director and UCLA engineering professor.

"Solutions to some of these problems could increase the rate of deployment of wireless networks and services offered through them," Gadh said.

Gadh is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

"The Wireless Consortium will also bring together the carriers with their infrastructure providers and educate the IT people on the benefits and also the CEOs on the potential benefits," Gadh said. Similar consortiums have proven successful in Europe and Asia, according to Gadh.

Founding members include Hewlett-Packard; Intel Corporation; Siemens; Sun Microsystems; Northrop Grumman Information Technology; Computer Associates; Hughes Network Systems; Tata Consultancy Services; Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP; Eizel Technologies Inc.; Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; Vario; Satyam; and Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth.

Even though the wireless industry has been heavily affected by recent declines in stock prices, "overall indications are that wireless usage of data is increasing," Gadh said. He also noted that venture capitalists continue to fund this sector.

UCLA is ideally suited to build such a consortium, with its proximity to the Los Angeles entertainment and media industries as well as Silicon Valley. In addition to the defense and aerospace industries, which require wireless connectivity, Southern California also hosts numerous software gaming companies.

Some industry experts believe gaming will be an important new market and wireless applications are expected to help boost its expansion. UCLA is also where the Internet began, and one of its founding fathers, Professor Leonard Kleinrock, is a member of the faculty.

"One of the consequences of this activity is an infrastructure that is emerging on campus to which companies can add their respective components," Gadh said.

Among the challenges faced by the industry, security poses one of the largest problems. "By allowing themselves mobility, wireless users are inadvertently allowing outsiders access to their data," Gadh said. Scalability and bandwidth must also be improved, he added.

-David Brown