Network architecture and traffic transport for integrated wireless communications over enterprise networks

A novel network architecture based on the IEEE 802.6 metropolitan area networks (MAN) is proposed to integrate the wireless and wired segments of a regional enterprise network (REN) within a city. This architecture functions like a distributed switch for all types of services, reducing traffic congestion by sharing the high capacity link dynamically and facilitating signaling, mobility management, call processing and network management through its distributed functions, transport facilities and broadcasting capability. It also serves as a peripheral gathering network of REN traffic for transport over a wide area ATM/BISDN, enabling integration of an enterprise's regional networks into a global EN. Two major wireless applications, i.e., wireless PABX (WPABX) and wireless LAN (WLAN) are discussed to illustrate the advantages of this MAN-based architecture. Although a REN is likely to support a wide range of different services, voice and data will continue to be the predominant traffic generated by WPABXs and WLANs, respectively, and are also representative of isochronous and asynchronous multimedia traffic carried by future wireless networks. We compare the traffic capacity of several voice transport alternatives under integrated (voice/data) network traffic with various data traffic loads, and study voice and data integration under three different integration schemes by simulations. Results indicate that the MAN-based architecture is most effective employing queue arbitrated (QA) access for asynchronous traffic, pre-arbitrated access for constant bit-rate isochronous traffic, and the new reservation arbitrated (RA) access for variable bit-rate isochronous traffic, under a scheme that permits full sharing between QA and RA traffic. Baltzer AG, Science Publishers.