Evolving towards Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems: development of a new system based on emerging technologies

The European standardisation bodies have defined spectrum allocation, bandwidth and access techniques for Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems (UMTS). As a working assumption, ATM has been chosen for switching of voice and data in the radio access nodes and the transport towards the core network. In this paper we show a solution for the development of the system, focusing on a protocol architecture capable of supporting the provision of advanced services. In particular, we depict a hierarchical structure for an ATM access network that implements the private network-node interface standard and inter-works with both ATM and IP based core networks. We propose some modifications to current standard procedures that will allow for dynamic bearer assignment.