Personal Environments

The Fourth Generation of wireless networks promises to offer a vast range and diversity of converged services in order to revolutionize the way we communicate today. 4G can not only offer ultra-high data rates, but would also enable the ubiquitous computing paradigm, particularly interesting for the end-user with the help of various personalized and user-friendly services and devices. This increase in short-range communication among users and introduction of personalized services would form a “Personal Ubiquitous Environment” around the user. Since in such environments, multiple users will come closer (without any third-party barriers); their cooperation would be the key to success. Several technological and social barriers have prevented so far an effective cooperation between technologies, systems or users. This chapter focuses on the potential impacts of cooperative ubiquitous services in 4G networking systems. The authors explain the technological implications of cooperative systems considering the personal environment ubiquity. Furthermore, it attempts to characterize the socio-technical dimension of the potentials and limits of cooperation in 4G systems.