Collaborative QoS architecture between DiffServ and 802.11e wireless LAN

As the multimedia applications such as voice over IP (VoIP) and audio/visual (AV) streaming across the Internet emerge, many are working on the network architecture to extend such applications to the wireless networking domain. The emerging IEEE 802.11e quality-of-service (QoS)-enabled wireless LAN (WLAN) is considered a strong candidate for the air interface for such multimedia applications thanks to the IP-centric network paradigm along with its inherent high-speed transmission capability. This paper provides an integrated wired/wireless network architecture interfacing QoS between user level traffic over IP using differentiated service (Diffserv) and transport level traffic using IEEE 802.11e WLAN. Our study investigates the correlations in end-to-end traffic management between Diffserv and 802.11e, and presents the hierarchical QoS signaling interface between Diffserv and 802.11e, in terms of traffic classifying, shaping and policing.