Performance evaluation of a novel IMS-based architecture for LTE-WIMAX-WLAN interworking

The next-generation heterogeneous networks aim to offer users of various networks seamless high quality IP-based multimedia services access anywhere at any time. IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) comes as a promising overlay service that provides a platform through which telecommunications operators can merge various networks to provide seamless data services. In this paper, we propose an architecture framework for interworking of the Worldwide Interoperability for Long Term Evolution (LTE), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies. The aim is the evolution of a seamless service provisioning heterogeneous networks. Thus, the proposed architecture extends IMS beyond 3G (UMTS) to 4G (LTE). The proposed LTE-WiMAX-WLAN tight coupled interworking is compared with the UMTS-WiMAX-WLAN tight coupled interworking. The two heterogeneous networks are simulated using OPNET Modeler 17.1. The performance metrices show that the proposed architecture outperforms the pervious architecture.