Abstract
The increasing sophistication of mobile devices has enabled several mobile social software applications, which are based on opportunistic exchange of data amongst devices in proximity of each other. Examples include Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) and PeopleNet. In this context, understanding user interactions is essential to designing algorithms which are efficient and enhance the user experience. In our experiment, users were handed Bluetooth enabled phones and asked to carry them all the time to log information about other devices in their proximity. Data was logged over several months, with over 350,000 contacts logged and over 10,000 unique devices discovered in this period. This paper analyzes this data by charactering the distributions of metrics such as contact time and inter-pair-contact time, and introducing several other important metrics useful for understanding user interactions. We find that most metrics follow a power law, except for inter-pair-contact time. We also look for patterns in user interactions, with the hope that these can be exploited for better algorithm design.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bahl, P., Balachandran, A., Voelker, G., Rangan, P.: Characterizing user behavior and network performance in a public wireless lan. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGEMTRICS 2002, Marina Del Ray, USA, June 2002, ACM Press, New York (2002)
Gross, T., Tuduce, C.: A mobility model based on wlan traces and its validation. In: Proceedings of Infocom 2005, Miami, U.S.A, March 2005 (2005)
Chaintreau, A., Hui, P., Crowcroft, J., Diot, C., Gass, R., Scott, J.: Pocket switched networks: Real world mobility and its consequences for opportunistic forwarding. In: Technical Report Number 617 (February 2005)
Eagle, N., Pentland, A.: Social serendipity: Mobilizing social software. IEEE Pervasive Computing 4(2), 28–34 (2005), http://reality.media.mit.edu/pdfs/serendipity.pdf
Henderson, T., Kotz, D., Abyzov, I.: The changing usage of a mature campus-wide network. In: Proceedings of MobiCom 2004, Philadelphia, PA, September 2004, pp. 22–31 (2004)
Cai, J.C., Su, J., Chin, A., DeLara, E.: User mobility for opportunistic ad-hoc networking. In: Proceedings of IEEE WMCSA 2004, English Lake District, UK, December 2004, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (2004)
McNett, M., Voelker, G.M.: Access and mobility of wireless PDA users. Mobile Computing and Communications Review 9(2), 40–55 (2005)
Motani, M., Srinivasan, V., Nuggenhalli, P.: PeopleNet: Engineering a wireless virtual social network. In: Proceedings of MobiCom 2005, Cologne, Germany, August 2005 (2005)
Motani, M., Srinivasan, V., Tsang, O.W.: Analysis and implications of student contact patterns derived from campus schedules. In: Proceedings of MobiCom 2006, California, U.S.A., September 2006 (2006)
InfoComm Development Authority of Singapore. Telecom services statistics for may 2005, http://www.ida.gov.sg/idaweb/media/
Tang, D., Baker, M.: Analysis of a metropolitan-area wireless network. In: Proceedings of ACM MOBICOM 1999, Boston, USA, ACM Press, New York (1999)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Natarajan, A., Motani, M., Srinivasan, V. (2007). Understanding Urban Interactions from Bluetooth Phone Contact Traces. In: Uhlig, S., Papagiannaki, K., Bonaventure, O. (eds) Passive and Active Network Measurement. PAM 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4427. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71617-4_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71617-4_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-71616-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-71617-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)