Mobility management and control protocol for wireless ATM networks

The introduction of wireless ATM (WATM) in customer premises network environments necessitates the design of mobility protocols, since the existing versions of B-ISDN signaling do not support terminal mobility. Such protocols can be deployed either as extensions to the standard signaling capabilities, or as individual solutions that have little or no impact on existing infrastructures (switches, signaling software, etc.). A WATM architecture that adopts the latter approach is presented. After a discussion of the problems encountered in the integration of wireless networking and B-ISDN ATM technologies, a mobility management and control (MMC) protocol is proposed. Finally, in the framework of the proposed MMC protocol, algorithms for implementing mobility procedures (handover and registration) are described.