ATM wireless access for mobile multimedia: concept and architecture

This article discusses the concept and architecture of ATM wireless access for mobile multimedia. Following an overview of wireless ATM, the authors present the concept of ATM wireless access (AWA). This concept is characterized by the following: (1) an ATM transport capability for supporting multimedia services; (2) utilization of the high frequency band for a high-speed transmission capability; (3) limited mobility during communications; and (4) a dual-mode access capability to private as well as public networks. In addition, architectural issues are discussed, including protocol architectures on the control/user (C/U) plane and mobile station architecture. Moreover, the ATM transport architecture is discussed in detail, including the topics of wireless ATM cell configuration, QoS issues, ATM/TDMA conversion over wireless, a timestamp scheme, and QoS-oriented buffer control.