A simple scheme for interconnecting wireless networks to ATM broadband networks

With the emerging ATM broadband networks and next generation wireless networks, there will be a need for connectivity between these networks. The interconnection of these networks has received some consideration in the literature. For providing seamless interconnection, it is desirable to introduce ATM technology in the wireless networks also. In an ATM network, VPI (virtual path identifier) and VCI (virtual circuit identifier) are allocated to a virtual-path consisting of switches and links between two fixed (stationary) users. However, the same is not true for wireless networks due to the user mobility. Therefore, for the interconnection of ATM based wireless and ATM networks, a mechanism will be required to maintain an end-to-end ATM connection with user mobility. Some schemes have been proposed in the literature including the use of multiple circuit numbers per mobile and assigning VPI/VCI to a base station. However, the ATM networks are likely to be operating at a speed much higher than the wireless networks and are therefore less likely to become a bottleneck under a high rate of handoffs. Thus the increased processing due to an interconnection scheme should be introduced in the ATM networks. This paper presents one such scheme, termed RAC, based on rearranging connections. The scheme has been analyzed to derive an expression for the overhead introduced and some preliminary results are presented.