Access Flow based Multi-Radio Access Connectivity

This paper describes the steps and the procedures involved to establish access flows for a user data session in multi-radio access networks. The description is evolved around the overall connectivity abstraction model defined in the ambient networks (AN) project. This model uses access flows as its fundamental objects which are the result of two main access selection procedures: network attachment and flow setup. All access abstractions and procedures have been developed to handle the requirements of efficient multi-access resource management through all stages of access connectivity. The paper discusses some design trade-off for the establishment of access flows concerning setup delays and resource efficiency.