A backward update strategy for location management in personal communication networks

The design of a cost-effective location management mechanism is very important in wireless personal communication networks (PCNs). This work presents a backward location update scheme compatible with the location management strategy used in current PCNs. In our design, the visitor location register (VLR) employs an intelligent micro-procedure, which distinguishes different types of location movements and performs different location update procedures. The location information stored in the home location register (HLR) is backward updated on demand necessarily for a call or short message delivery. Thus, the proposed scheme is able to save significant amount of traffic cost and database overhead.