Location dependent benchmarking with mobility behavior is a necessary step in the evolution of improvements of wireless and computing technology. The components needed for a mobile computing benchmark include specifications for data, queries, mobile unit behavior and execution guidelines. One of the most unique types of queries present in the mobile computing environment is a location dependent query where its result depends on the issue location. In this paper we describe the main features of a location dependent benchmark including the execution guidelines. While targeted to location dependent applications, it contains more general queries as well. As such, it can be viewed as the first benchmark targeted to the general mobile computing environment.

We present a transaction commit protocol, "Transaction Commit On Timeout (TCOT)," based on a "timeout" approach for Mobile Database Systems (MDS), which can be universally used to reach a final transaction termination decision (e.g., commit, abort, etc.) in any message-oriented system. Particularly suited for a wireless environment, a timeout mechanism is the only way to minimize the impact of the slow and unreliable wireless link. We compare TCOT to a modified version of 2PC to show its superiority based on commit time.