Designing a Novel Unlicensed Nomadic Access Relay Station in IEEE 802.16-Based Wireless Access Networks

Existing wireless access (mobile) routers are commonly based on the network address and port translation (NAPT) technique which permits simultaneously sharing a subscriber's connection to the core network with multiple users. However, the NAPT architecturally makes the users invisible on the core network side, thus becoming a user-oriented connection-sharing technique. In this paper, we propose a novel service provider-oriented wireless broadband (Libra) unlicensed nomadic access relay station (WiNNERS) for helping WiBro network service providers to make their business more lucrative by accommodating unlicensed band users as subscribers into their network. The WiNNERS offers service providers the capability to directly manage each of the unlicensed band users at the core network side. This direct management allows the service providers to flexibly and simply handle QoS, access control, and billing for each unlicensed band user. In order to distinguish each of the unlicensed band users, the WiNNERS constructs a virtual tunnel from each user's terminal to the core network access control router (ACR) using connection identifier (CID) which is defined for service (traffic) flow management within the WiBro system. Consequently, our proposed service provider-oriented relay station can be included into the WiBro network system with minimum modifications.