Paving the road to systems beyond 3G - the IST MIND project

In systems beyond 3G mobile access will be considerably more diverse than is currently the case with highly integrated cellular technologies. Complemented with new access technologies, such as wireless LANs, future mobile systems will offer a different mix of bandwidth, cost and coverage. There will also be extensions to traditional wireless access networks - both by operators with wireless routers and by users forming ad-hoc networks that attach at the fringe of the access network. Creating services and delivering multimedia over these networks is a very real technical challenge. In this paper the overall approach of the IST MIND project to tackling these issues is described. Further the rationale for an IP-based architecture and how it is being extended to encompass new access concepts of wireless and mobile routers is detailed. Finally the paper looks at how we are enhancing WLAN systems to give greatly increased performance for systems beyond 3G.