An end-to-end quality of service management architecture for wireless ATM networks

Wireless ATM networks will bridge the gap between mobility and broadband networking. The major challenge to this end consists of guaranteeing adequate end-to-end quality of service (QoS) in spite of the unreliable radio channel. In response to this we propose an integrated end-to-end QoS management architecture built around scalable error tolerant codecs, network filters and error modules to compensate for transmission errors and local QoS degradation. A broker concept combines local and distributed resource management and negotiation of QoS at different levels. By introducing QoS intervals both at application and transport level we cope with short term channel fluctuations on a wireless link. User definable degradation paths determine the behavior of the system in case the network QoS changes for a longer period of time. Mapping functions are provided to transform a QoS description from the user perspective to QoS parameters and negotiation at the network level. Incorporating media filters into the overall broker architecture allows different media codecs to be used between the source and the sinks depending on the channel conditions and link utilization while obeying user defined end-to-end QoS strategies. We draft several protocols for the sender and receiver driven multicast scenario and show, how automatic filter propagation can be achieved under given end-to-end QoS constraints.