Broadband Packet Switching Technologies: A Practical Guide to ATM Switches and IP Routers

CHAPTER 12

WIRELESS ATM SWITCHES

The goal of next-generation wireless systems is to enable mobile users to access ubiquitous multimedia information anytime anywhere. New mobile and wireless services include Internet access to interactive multimedia and video conferencing as well as traditional services such as voice, email, and Web access. The extension of broadband services to the wireless environment is being driven mainly by the increasing demand for mobile multimedia services coupled with the advent of high-performance portable devices such as laptop PCs and personal digital assistants [1, 2].

In recent years, wireless ATM has drawn much attention as a solution for QoS-based mobile multimedia services. It has been an active topic of research and development in many organizations worldwide [2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and is now under standardization within applicable bodies such as the ATM Forum [7] and ETSI.

Wireless ATM is intended to provide seamless support of qualitatively similar multimedia services on both fixed and mobile terminals. The realization of wireless ATM raises a number of technical issues that need to be resolved, however. First, there is a need for the allocation and standardization of appropriate radio frequency bands for broadband communications. Second, new radio access ...