Design and Analysis of a Mobility Gateway for GPRS–WLAN Integration

This paper presents the design and analysis of general packet radio service (GPRS)-wireless local area network (WLAN) mobility gateway (GWMG) for the integration of GPRS and WLANs. The interworking between GPRS and WLANs is achieved by the GWMG that resides on the border of GPRS and WLAN systems. The design goal is to minimize the modifications in GPRS and WLANs as both systems are already widely available. By deploying the GWMG, users can seamlessly roam among the two systems. Unlike other related work, the proposed GWMG could be used when either the GPRS or WLAN is a user's home network. Both mathematical analysis and simulation are developed to analyze the performance. The proposed GWMG has also been implemented in a testbed comprising a commercial GPRS system. The results show that the GWMG could achieve a design goal that will effectively integrate GPRS and WLANs.