An Architecture for Resource Management in IMS Wireless Access Networks

The present paper describes a mechanism that enables multi-homed mobile terminals to load balance the data traffic from different applications or the media streams that belong to a multimedia session between multiple access networks. The mechanism is based on the idea of extending the UMTS-WLAN interworking architecture specified by 3GPP to enable the routing of the data traffic through multiple IPsec tunnels that span multiple IP-based access networks. The approach provides for a straightforward integration of the routing function with the IMS policing framework, whose network resource management policies may be mapped into a set of IPsec rules. The proposed mechanism enables a continuous adaptation of the data traffic routing to the momentary availability of the network resources.