Provision of data (IP) services in third generation mobile networks

Third-generation mobile networks will enable services which are regularly available through fixed networks (WWW, Internet) to be offered into the mobile domain. The impact IP data services may have on the base station is, at this time, unclear. Coupled with this is a particularly poor performance characteristic achieved with TCP over (lossy) wireless links. Starting with results from IMT-2000 proposals, this paper makes a preliminary investigation into these issues, indicating that placement of a router in the base station controller is feasible, in terms of both capacity and additional system complexity. Results also indicate that the relationship between goodput and base station capacity (number of users) shows a significant reduction in efficient use of routing capacity, even though the radio resource may be fully occupied.