Usability and evaluation of a deployed 4G network prototype

This article presents a field evaluation of an IP-based architecture for heterogeneous environments that has been developed under the aegis of the Moby Dick project, covering UMTS-like (universal mobile telecommunications system) TD-CDMA (time division-code division multiple access) wireless access technology, wireless and wired LANs. The architecture treats all transmission capabilities as basic physical and data-link layers, and replaces all higher-level tasks by IP-based strategies. The Moby Dick architecture incorporates mobile IPv6, fast handovers, AAA-control (authentication, authorisation, accounting), charging and quality of service (QoS) in an integrated framework. The architecture further allows for optimised control on the radio link layer resources. It has been implemented and tested by expert users, and evaluated by real users on field trials with multiple services available.