ISSN (Print) : 2319-5940 ISSN (Online) : 2278-1021 International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering Vol. 2, Issue 8, August 2013 Copyright to IJARCCE www.ijarcce.com 3109 Challenges of Mobile Computing: An Overview Rahul B. Mannade 1 , Amol B. Bhande 2 System Analyst, Govt. College of Engineering, Chandrapur, India 1 Assistant Manager, Network Operations, Vodafone India Ltd., Pune, India 2 Abstract: Mobile computing is a new computing paradigm in which mobile devices are used to access information from anywhere, at any time. Wireless network greatly enhances the utility of a portable computing device. The field of mobile computing is merger of the portable computing device and wireless communication with the aim of providing seamless computing environment for mobile users. Mobility implies that network needs to cope with moving users. Wireless communication faces more obstacles than wired communication due to environmental interferences. As a result wireless communication is characterized by lower bandwidth, higher error rates and more frequent disconnections. Mobility can also cause wireless connectivity to be lost or degraded. Unlike typical wired network, number of mobile users varies dynamically and large convention and public events may overload the network capacity. Mobile devices are characterized by smaller size, light in weight and low power. Hence while designing wireless networks as well as mobile application softwares all these issues should taken in consideration. Keywords: Mobility, Bandwidth, Portability, Address Migration, Access Point, Wireless Communication, Disconnections. I. INTRODUCTION Mobile Computing constitutes a new paradigm of computing which is expected to revolutionize the way computers are used. The combination of wireless communication infrastructure and portable computing devices has laid the foundation for a new computing, which allows users access information and collaborate with others while on the move [1] . Such mobility can take the form of users moving between fixed terminals anywhere in the world or users taking mobile devices with them wherever they move. In both cases, the user should have a consistent working environment with access to their usual files, email, and so on. Mobility should therefore support the seamless movement of people, data, and/or applications between different locations. Wireless mobile networks are generally characterized by several constraints such as storage space, bandwidth, battery power, rapid fluctuations in availability of these resources; it makes difficult for system software to guaranteed quality-of- service. Also mobile users are always tend to move anywhere at any time, users may be disconnected from the network often and even user may switch off their mobiles intentionally to save battery power; thus disconnection management is critical issue in designing mobile networks. In general, a mobile-computing network consists of multiple mobile agents that require access to (i) information generated at multiple geographically dispersed sites and (ii) computing engines to execute their decisions. It may include one or more stationary agents that perform information acquisition and propagation to the mobile agents. While a Fig. 1: Typical Mobile Computing Environment static interconnection network may link the stationary agents, a dynamic interconnection network will connect the mobile agents to the stationary nodes. The mobile nodes may connect to specific nodes asynchronously, i.e., at irregular intervals of time, to acquire information, and following completion they will disconnect. The mobile and stationary agents are located at geographically dispersed sites. While both stationary and mobile nodes may have computing and communication needs, the relative weights and frequency are problem-specific.