Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks Architectures and Protocols
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Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks Architectures and Protocols Ekram Hossain Editor Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks Architectures and Protocols 123 Editor Ekram Hossain Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering University of Manitoba 75A Chancellor’s Circle Winnipeg MB R3T 5V6 Canada ISBN: 978-0-387-09776-3 e-ISBN: 978-0-387-09777-0 DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-09777-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008931320 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper springer.com To my parents and my family Preface A Brief Journey through “Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks” Ekram Hossain, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada Introduction With the rapid growth in the number of wireless applications, services and devices, using a single wireless technology such as a second generation (2G) and third gener- ation (3G) wireless system would not be efficient to deliver high speed data rate and quality-of-service (QoS) support to mobile users in a seamless way. The next genera- tion wireless systems (also sometimes referred to as Fourth generation (4G) systems) are being devised with the vision of heterogeneity in which a mobile user/device will be able to connect to multiple wireless networks (e.g., WLAN, cellular, WMAN) simultaneously. For example, IP-based wireless broadband technology such as IEEE 802.16/WiMAX (i.e., 802.16a, 802.16d, 802.16e, 802.16g) and 802.20/MobileFi will be integrated with 3G mobile networks, 802.11-based WLANs, 802.15-based WPANs, and wireline networks to provide seamless broadband connectivity to mo- bile users in a transparent fashion. Heterogeneous wireless systems will achieve effi- cient wireless resource utilization, seamless handoff, global mobility with QoS sup- port through load balancing and tight integration with services and applications in the higher layers. After all, in such a heterogeneous wireless access network, a mo- bile user should be able to connect to the Internet in a seamless manner. The wireless resources need to be managed efficiently from the service providers point of view for maximum capacity and improved return on investment. Protocol engineering and architecture design for broadband heterogeneous wire- less access systems is an emerging research area. Load balancing and network se- lection, resource allocation and admission control, fast and efficient vertical hand- off mechanisms, and provisioning of QoS on an end-to-end basis are some of the VIII Preface major research issues related to the development of heterogeneous wireless access networks. The contributed articles in this book from the leading experts in this field cover different aspects of analysis, design, deployment, and optimization of protocols and architectures for heterogeneous wireless access networks. In particular, the top- ics include challenges and issues in architecture deign and provisioning of QoS for heterogeneous wireless access networks, convergence of heterogeneous wireless and wireline access networks, architectures and protocols for spectrum sharing in hetero- geneous wireless networks, cognitive radio techniques for heterogeneous wireless access, radio resource management, admission control, vertical handoff and mobil- ity management, network selection in heterogeneous wireless access networks, mod- eling and performance analysis of heterogeneous mobile networks, energy saving through heterogeneous wireless access, congestion control in wired-cum-wireless Internet, quality-oriented multimedia streaming in heterogeneous networks, pricing policies in heterogeneous wireless networks, content discovery in heterogeneous mo- bile networks, and heterogeneous wireless network test-beds. A summary of all of the chapters is provided in the following sections. Integration of Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks: Issues and Approaches As the first chapter in the book, Chapter 1, authored by R. Beaubrun, introduces the concepts and definitions related to integration of different wireless access networks, different architectural alternatives, and provides examples of signaling exchange pro- tocols for mobility management in a heterogeneous network architecture. The wireless access networks in a heterogeneous system are likely to be oper- ated by different service providers who will require to operate based on different service agreements to provide seamless services to the mobile users while maxi- mizing their own utilities. The mobile users would like to seamlessly and dynami- cally roam among the different access networks to maintain the most optimal net- work connectivity. In this context, intra-technology handoff (or horizontal handoff) and inter-technology handoff (or vertical handoff) will be common phenomena. The inter-technology handoff situations may result in the mobile users moving out of a preferred network or moving in to a preferred network. Mobility over a larger scale is likely to be handled through the Mobile IP (MIP) protocol used in the In- ternet. Security and authentication operations need to be performed as well during inter-technology handoff. The handoff management protocols should guarantee the network application performances at the expense of tolerable signaling complexity. Different integration architectures should be evaluated based on the above consider- ations. Two generic architectures for integrating different access networks are: loosely coupled architecture and tightly coupled architecture. In a loosely coupled architec- ture, the networks are interconnected independently using a common interworking point. Different mechanisms can be used to handle authentication, billing and mobil- ity management in each network (each of which is presumably operated by different Preface IX service providers) and MIP can be used for mobility management across the net- works. In such a architecture mobile users can use their Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) or User Service Identity Module (USIM) card to access services over differ- ent networks. In this case minimal modifications may be required for the existing network components. In a tightly coupled architecture, for example, in a scenario where WLANs and WiMAX networks are integrated with 3G/UMTS networks, the WLANs and the WiMAX networks can be integrated through a 3G logical node and these networks behave as alternate RANs connected with the 3G/UMTS network. The integration can be performed either at the core network level (i.e., Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) level or Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) level) or at the access network level (i.e., Radio Network Controller (RNC) level). The WLAN gateways and the WiMAX gateways in this case are required to implement the 3G protocols for mobility management, authentication etc. which are required in a 3G radio access network. Although data traffic can bypass the 3G/UMTS infras- tructure, all the signaling traffic would pass through the 3G/UMTS core network. In general, integration through tight-coupling is more complex than the loose coupling approach and it requires modifications in the existing network components (e.g., in SGSN and GGSN). To this end, the chapter provides examples of signaling protocols required for connection establishment and vertical handoff in an integrated WLAN/3G network where a tightly coupled integration is used at the SGSN level. Chapter 2, authored by P. TalebiFard, L. Wong, and V. C. Chang, first describes the different application and service requirements for communications over a con- verged heterogeneous network. Then it introduces the architectural elements of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as a core network technology to integrate heteroge- neous wireless networks into a single converged IP-based multi-service network in- frastructure. The quality of service (QoS) provisioning and mobility support issues of integrating heterogeneous networks with IMS at the core network are discussed. An all-IP-based converged network will need to support different conversational services (e.g., voice over IP, video calls), location-based services, multimedia mes- saging services (MMS), instant messaging services (IMS), content streaming ser- vices as well as mobile broadcast and IPTV services. IMS, which was initially de- fined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and 3GPP2, provides an architecture that enables the development of all of the above different types of ser- vices in converged fixed, wireless, and mobile networks in a terminal and access technology-agnostic manner. The requirements of the IMS architecture to deliver ser- vices to the end users include enabling establishment of IP multimedia sessions, sup- port of QoS negotiation, interworking with Internet and circuit-switched networks, support of subscriber roaming between service domains, policy-based service dis- covery, rapid service creation,