A gateway approach to mobility integration of GPRS and wireless LANs

This article presents a gateway approach to the integration of GPRS and wireless LANs (WLANs). The proposed architecture leverages mobile IP as the mobility management protocol over WLANs. The interworking between GPRS and WLANs is achieved by a gateway that resides on the border of GPRS and WLAN systems. The design goal is to minimize the modifications in GPRS and WLANs as both systems are widely available in the market already. By deploying the gateway, users can seamlessly roam among the two systems. The proposed architecture and design principles have been implemented in a commercial GPRS network operated by the Taiwan Cellular Corporation. Empirical experiments with multimedia applications were conducted to analyze the performance in terms of handoff latency, packet delay, and throughput.