On architectures for broadband wireless systems

The growing popularity of portable and mobile computing and communication devices, along with the introduction of wireline broadband networks, is fueling demand for wireless broadband networks. Since ATM has been accepted as the standard for broadband integrated service networks, the authors consider the problem of providing “ATM-like services” to mobile devices. The fundamental issues that have to be tackled in order to provide broadband services which are currently available (or will be very shortly) to wireline hosts are discussed. The authors compare and contrast the architectures that have been proposed for extending the broadband wireline network infrastructure to the wireless environment. It is argued that transporting small ATM cells over the air leads to inefficient utilization of the already scarce transmission capacity. Subsequently, the authors propose an architecture for integrated wireless and wireline broadband networks which allows the wireline and wireless parts of the network to be designed independently, therefore allowing each to be optimized for the environment in which it operates. At the same time, the proposed architecture also permits simple and efficient interconnection between the wireline and wireless infrastructures