Part III: WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES AND SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT
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SIGNALING FOR MULTIMEDIA CONFERENCING IN 4G: ARCHITECTURE, EVALUATION, AND ISSUES
The fourth-generation wireless system (4G) is seen as an integration and an evolution of existing wireless network architecture such as 2G and 3G, with new ones such as mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). One major issue in 4G is the provisioning of ubiquitous and seamless service access with different underlying wireless technologies. Multimedia conferencing is seen as a service that can enable many “killer” applications such as audio/video conferencing, gaming, and public debating in 4G. In this chapter, we discuss an important technical aspect of conferencing: signaling. It refers to session establishment, modification, and termination. It is indispensable and critical for each phase of conferencing. We will focus on the signaling architectures in 4G (including 3G network, MANETs, and integrated MANETs/3G), and we analyze the signaling performance, the issues, and some solutions.
This chapter consists of three sections. In Section 12.1, we introduce the background information and the state of the art. The concepts of 4G, MANETs, conferencing, and signaling are presented in that section. Section 12.2 is devoted to signaling architectures in 4G. In Section 12.3, we will discuss some signaling performance issues and present a solution that is based on cross-layer design.
12.1 BACKGROUND: 4G, MOBILE AD HOC ...
