Management architecture for aggregation of heterogeneous systems and spectrum bands

Mobile networks will increasingly need to make use of heterogeneous access and spectrum opportunities to realize required capacity and quality of service. Moreover, aggregation of such resources will routinely be necessary, and there will be a clear need to develop a management architecture for that aggregation. Such an architecture should ascertain what can and should be aggregated by particular systems, networks, and terminals in view of better managing the collection of available resources on a heterogeneous system level, taking into account all systems', networks', and terminals' traffic requirements and technical capabilities. This article proposes such a management architecture and assesses its benefits, quantified by some particular examples.