A method and system for providing services in communications networks. A gateway layer determines information about a communication session and responsively sends a signaling message to a session manager, providing the information. The session manager may then send a signaling message to a service agent, also providing the information. The service agent may in turn apply a set of service logic based at least in part on the information, so as to derive a service treatment, and the service agent may send a signaling message so as to cause an enforcement engine (such as the gateway or session manager) to carry out the service treatment. Advantageously, this arrangement may facilitate imposition of services across various types of communication sessions (such as voice sessions and/or data sessions) and access networks (such as circuit-switched and/or packet-switched), at session initiation and during the course of an ongoing session. A variety of useful services may thereby be provided.

Method and system for providing services in communications networks

It is now widely recognized that using IP as the foundation for next-generation mobile networks makes strong economic and technical sense, since it takes advantage of the ubiquitous installed IP infrastructure, capitalizes on the IETF standardization process, and benefits from both existing and emerging IP-related technologies and services. The large-scale support of data services and their integration with legacy services are the common objectives of all wireless efforts termed third generation (3G) and beyond. In these all-IP wireless networks, IP can be deployed in two modes: the transport mode and the native mode. As we show in this article, this duality in the use of IP has a significant impact on network efficiency and performance. It is the extended native use of IP in the terrestrial segment of a wireless operator's domain that more readily allows for building a converged network with multiple access technologies. We then discuss the different levels of mobility in the all-IP network. In particular, our focus is on micromobility, and on the issue of seamless localized mobility within the converged network. After reviewing the mobility schemes that have emerged in previous years, we describe a hierarchical mobility management scheme based on multiprotocol label switching (MPLS). The scheme employs an enhanced type of MPLS routers, called label edge mobility agents, and is scalable, efficient, and flexible. It directly inherits the noted capabilities of MPLS in terms of support of QoS, traffic engineering, advanced IP services, and fast restoration. This scheme does not use nodes that are specific to any given wireless technology, and is well suited for gradual deployment.

Mobility management in third-generation all-IP networks

Method and system for imposing air interface service level

Today's wireless core network is based on a circuit-switched SS7 architecture similar to that found in wireline telecommunications networks. With the advent of IP technologies and the tremendous growth in data traffic, the wireless industry is evolving its core networks toward IP technology. Wireless telecommunications started as an offshoot of wireline telephony, and the absence of global standards resulted in regional standardization. Two major mobile telecommunications standards have dominated the global wireless market, namely, TDMA/CDMA developed by the TIA in North America and GSM developed by the ETSI in Europe. As we move toward third-generation wireless, there is a need to develop standards which are more global and collaborative. The global wireless industry has created two new global partnership projects, SGPP and 3GPP2, to address the issue of the limited data capabilities of 2G systems, motivating the partnership projects (PPs) to start work on 3G wideband radio technologies that can provide higher data rates. This work resulted in 3G wireless radio technologies that will provide data rates of 144 kb/s for vehicular, 384 kb/s for pedestrian, and 2 Mb/s for indoor environments, and meet the ITU IMT-2000 requirements. Now that the radio technology standards to support higher data rates have been developed, the PPs are focusing on development of standards for all-IP networks. We discuss the genesis of 3GPP and 3GPP2 IP work, outlining the important architectural differences of the two groups. Currently, 3GPP and 3GPP2 offer divergent proposals that need to be harmonized if convergence toward an IP-based mobile telecommunications networks is to become a reality.

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The 3GPP and 3GPP2 movements toward an all-IP mobile network

This paper presents the fault tolerance of Mobile IP in wireless systems. Mobile IP can support wireless users with continuous network connections while changing locations. It is achieved by allocating a number of mobility agents (foreign agents and home agents) in the architecture of a wireless system. If a failure occurs in a mobility agent, the wireless users located in the coverage area of the faulty mobility agent will lose their network connections. To tolerate the failures of mobility agents, this paper proposes an efficient approach to maintaining the network connections of wireless users without being affected by the failures. Once detecting a failure in a mobility agent, failure-free mobility agents are dynamically selected to be organized as a backup set to take over the faulty mobility agent. Compared to the previous approaches, the proposed approach does not take any actions against failures during the failure-free period. Besides, the hardware redundancy technique is also not used in the proposed approach. The overhead of the proposed approach is analyzed using the M/G/c/c queuing model. The results show that the proposed approach can effectively resolve the fault-tolerant problem of Mobile IP in wireless systems.

An efficient fault-tolerant approach for Mobile IP in wireless systems

The CDMA community, under the umbrella of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2, has embarked on a standardization effort for wireless data based on mobile IP. Important issues addressed include the link layer interface to a mobile IP foreign agent; how link-layer mobility interacts with IP-layer mobility; how virtual private network services will be supported; and how to provide authentication, authorization, and accounting in a cellular mobile IP environment. Members of 3GPP2 are also active in the Internet Engineering Task Force's mobile IP, ROAMOPS, and AAA working groups. Based on our experiences in this effort, this article gives an overview of the issues we have encountered in standardizing a mobile IP-based network architecture in a cellular telephony environment, including current points of contention, and gives a summary of the current state of the standards.

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T. Hiller

Papers

An Internet infrastructure for cellular CDMA networks using mobile IP