Interworking of addressing schemes in an internetwork

We examine the problem of address interworking that arises when two networks of the same type (that use the same addressing format) are interconnected by a different type of network (one that uses a different addressing format). Solutions to this problem fall broadly into four categories: (i) schemes that send address resolution messages when a call/packet arrives ("pull" information), (ii) schemes in which address resolution information is sent in routing or routing-like protocols ("push" information), (iii) schemes that use administered cross-office address translation tables at gateways, and (iv) schemes that use encapsulated/mapped addresses. Internetworking problems that are of interest today include PSTN/ATM, IP/ATM and PSTN/IP internetworking. The PSTN uses 8-byte E.164 addresses (telephone numbers), IP networks use 4-byte IPv4 addresses, and ATM networks use 20-byte ATM End System Addresses (AESAs). Current solutions to the address interworking problem for these internetworks fall into the first three categories of solutions. We propose use of the last solution category for these three internetworking problems. We provide a comparison of our proposed scheme with other solutions.