Signaling stack design for wireless ATM access networks

One of the challenges in designing a wireless ATM network is to specify control functions capable of managing data and signaling connections of moving mobile terminals. The challenge is tough, due to the facts that such control functions neither exist in the current state-of-the-art wireless networks nor are included in the existing ATM specifications and implementations. This article describes the design principles of a wireless ATM signaling stack created in the WAND project. The article identifies some common problems and presents possible solutions to the problems. To justify the feasibility of the ideas presented, some details of a reference implementation, the Wireless ATM Network Demonstrator (WAND) signaling stack, are revealed.