Interworking of Wimax and 3GPP networks based on IMS [IP Multimedia Systems (IMS) Infrastructure and Services]

The 3GPP specifies the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) to provide several kinds of multimedia services in UMTS Release 5 and later releases. Interworking at the service layer between 3GPP and Wimax networks requires interworking between IMS functionality. By studying several interconnection scenarios and the main functionality of IMS, this article analyzes how the interworking of 3GPP and Wimax networks can be performed to support different levels of service interconnection. Special attention is paid to the interconnection at the session negotiation level, using SIP (the base protocol of the IMS), COPS/Go, and diameter protocols/interface to provide session negotiation with QoS and AAA (authentication authorization accounting) support