Integration of Media Point System with the 3GPP IMS

In this paper we propose an integration of the Media Point and 3GPP/UMTS systems, which aims to allow subscribers to access Media Point specific personalised services by using both WLAN and UMTS interfaces, while focusing on a fast session re-establishment during system transition from UMTS to WLAN. Based on the interworking scenarios identified 3GPP, a loose-coupling solution for the WLAN/UMTS integration is presented. The solution arranges a connection at the application level between the service nodes of Media Point system and 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as it makes use of the fact that both systems are employing the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for their mobility and session management. We show that the integration can benefit from the Location Services (LCS) feature of the 3GPP system in order to minimise the session interruption time on one hand, and to help the user terminal save its battery on the other hand. The efficiency of the solution as well as the expected reduction of session resume time cannot be estimated yet as it strongly depends on the performance of the selected positioning method provided by the access network (UTRAN).