“VoIP for Wireless”

by Dr. Henning Schulzrinne, Columbia University, IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer

Joint meeting with SCV-ComSoc

Abstract: IEEE 802.11-based networks are likely to become popular as replacements for cordless phones, particularly in enterprise settings, and as a way to fill in cellular coverage inside buildings and homes. However, using 802.11a/b/g for VoIP poses a number of challenges, including how to make hand-offs transparent, how to maximize capacity and how to limit the number of concurrent calls to avoid quality degradation. In the IRT Lab at Columbia University, we have proposed and investigated a number of techniques that address these issues. In addition, measurements of 802.11 networks illustrate some of the operational and modeling challenges.

This is joint work with Ashutosh Dutta, Andrea Forte, Sangho Shin and Kenta Yasukawa.

Bio: Prof. Henning Schulzrinne received his undergraduate degree in economics and electrical engineering from the Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany, his MSEE degree as a Fulbright scholar from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was a member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill and an associate department head at GMD-Fokus (Berlin), before joining the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering departments at Columbia University, New York. He is currently chair of the Department of Computer Science.

He is editor of the “Computer Communications Journals”, the “ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing”, the “ComSoc Surveys & Tutorials” and the “IEEE Internet Computing Magazine”, and a former editor of the “IEEE Transactions on Image Processing”, “Journal of Communications and Networks” and “IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking”.

He has been a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society and is vice chair of ACM SIGCOMM, former chair of the IEEE Communications Society Technical Committees on Computer Communications and the Internet and has been technical program chair of Global Internet, IEEE Infocom, NOSSDAV, IM, IFIP Networking 2009 and IPtel and General Co-Chair of ACM Multimedia 2004 and ICNP 2009. He serves on the Internet2 Applications, Middleware and Services Advisory Council and as working group chair in the NSF GENI project. He also has been a member of the IAB (Internet Architecture Board). He serves on a number of conference and journal steering committees, including for the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

Protocols co-developed by him, such as RTP, RTSP and SIP, are now Internet standards, used by almost all Internet telephony and multimedia applications. His research interests include Internet multimedia systems, quality of service, and performance evaluation.

He served as Chief Scientist for FirstHand Technologies and Chief Scientific Advisor for Ubiquity Software Corporation. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, has received the New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, the VON Pioneer Award and the TCCC service award.