Interconnecting WLANs with UMTS networks

Since the early nineties, wireless communications grew substantially in our societies to satisfy the latent need for mobile communications, with the main focus being communicate "whenever and wherever" one wants. Many protocols were proposed, of which 2.5G GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile Communications / General Packet Radio Service) and 3G UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems) as wide expensive network architectures and the IEEE wireless suite that aims to provide low cost wireless connectivity. Today, it seems obvious that both architectures, combined together, would lead to the best resource utilization, the greatest field cover at the lowest cost of installation. In this paper, we are interested in using Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) as access networks for the UMTS. We introduce a new WLAN protocol with hybrid properties based on 802.11e in order to comply with the strict Quality of Service (QoS) UMTS uses for its flows. It aims to fill the weaknesses of 802.11e in terms of delay adaptation with this 3G network.