Bringing two worlds together: AAL2 over IP for radio access networks

With the approaching 3G wireless standard, the development of an efficient technique for transporting a mix of voice and data over limited bandwidth links is crucial. State of the art GSM systems use the connection oriented ATM protocol, while data networking is based on the best-effort IP protocol. ATM protocols have been developed for efficient universal networking with mixed voice and data traffic, and they have matured for more than a decade. This paper presents a new method for an efficient transport of voice and data over shared links by leveraging the high level part of the ATM protocol, the AAL2 adaption layer, on top a IP based transport layer. It turns out that this solution combines the advantages of both approaches, and it is superior to either one of the isolated solutions