Cross-Technology Overlay Control Protocol for Resource Management in Converged Networks

With the growth of mobile handsets and services provided over wireless networks, the need of dynamically managed environments is obvious. Network providers have already moved from E1/T1 lines to more scalable technologies, including EPONs (Ethernet Passive Optical Networks) and WiMax. These new technologies support service differentiation and Quality of Service (QoS). This work presents an overlay, cross-technology, signaling protocol which allows information exchange, enabling convergence in terms of common resource management, between different types of networks. This behavior is desirable mainly in the fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) area. The benefits of such a common, distributed, resource management scheme are presented in this work. A set of simulations performed using OMNet++, show the advantages of its use in converged EPON-WiMax networks.