Harmen R. van As

User profile replication with caching for distributed location management in mobile communication networks

Location management is an essential process in future mobile communication networks. An important issue is an efficient management of the location database. In this paper, the next generation mobile communication network is proposed to be integrated with a TINA-compliant architecture enabled to handle that kind of mobile-specific processes. This paper discusses the design, and its modeling and comparison of distributed location management strategies based on a TINA-compliant architecture for wireless mobile communication networks. A new location strategy called user profile replication with caching (UPRC) is proposed. In UPRC, user profiles based on user mobility patterns are replicated and combined with caching of the called user profile. This reduces the communication (signaling messages) and computational cost (database accesses) as compared to the location management schemes of simple replication with caching (SRC). A most frequent location area (MFLA) is then introduced which also reduces the number of location update messages between the home location database (HLD) and the visited location database (VLD) in such a way that the location change is reported to the MFLA of the user instead of the HLD. With the MFLA concept, the currently centralized location database becomes a distributed location database taking into account user mobility behavior. The unified performance measures used for comparison are communication costs, computational costs and average total costs.

Connection and Location Management Based on a TINA-Compliant Architecture for UMTS

Connection and location management are the main processes for a mobile communication network. In this paper, the next generation mobile communication network such as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System), is proposed to integrate with a TINA-compliant architecture enabling to handle that kind of management-specific processes. The approach provides a key framework for the unified and adapted provision of connection mobility management toward roaming users using different end systems and, access networks via a core/fixed network. It can be seen as a benchmark application of TINA on UMTS.

Driving optical network innovation by extensively using transparent domains

Optical transparency giving full-flexibility to the end systems with respect to transmission rate, coding, format and protocol has been an early vision in optical networking. Depending on the timing period, channel transparency such as in WDM channels or timed transparency such as in optical burst or packet switching applies. Operation of current optical networks is completely based on a small number of transmission standards of electronic transmission equipment both in the high-bit core and metro networks and the low-bit optical access networks. The use of optical switching in form of crossconnects is very limited. An increasing trend can be observed in the usage of optical add-drop units. In access networks, radio-over-fiber to increase the flexibility of the allocation of radio frequency carriers in mobile communication cells has attracted global interest. The paper presents the properties, merits, limits as well as networking and application issues.

A Comparative Study on Distributed Location Management Strategies in Wireless Networks

Location management is an essential process in future mobile communicationnetworks. An important issue is an efficient management of the location database. In this paper, the next generation mobile communication networks are proposed to integrate with a TINA-compliant architecture enabling to handle that kind of mobile-specific processes. We consider a distributed location database architecture for location management performing the following strategies: HLD (home location database only), HLD-VLD (HLD with a visited location database), or VLD-CLD (HLD and VLD with a cache location database). This paper discusses design, modelling and the comparison of the mentioned distributed location management strategies. The performance measures used for comparison are communication cost (signalling messages), computational cost (database accesses) and average total cost. For the performance analysis, we assume that the cost of updating a cache pointer and a user profile at CLD/VLD is equal. Results show that the combination of replication with caching scheme (VLD-CLD) performs better than the replication scheme (HLD-VLD) for a very wide range of call-to-mobility ratio (CMR).

An Optically Transparent Ultra High Speed LAN-ring Employing OTDM

In this paper, an optically transparent 100Gbit/s ring-LAN architecture based on the slotted ring protocol and the OTDM technique is presented. Optical transparency is achieved by using optical packets of constant duration which consist of variable bit rate payloads and headers with fixed data rate. Thus, the considered LAN is capable of providing multiple services for nodes with different transmission speeds.

Driving Trends in Information and Communication Technology - Markets and Technologies

This paper presents an analytical study of the development of the information and communication technology (ICT) market from the marketing as well as from a technological point of view. The trends and their impact on the information communication networks and consequently smart networks are discussed. Despite the current global economic disaster in almost every single industry, there are still a lot of business opportunities within the ICT industry, e.g., revenue-generating new features, applications and value-added services, soft-switches, plug-and-play network elements, network security, e- and m-business, micro-payment systems, personalized blue-tooth bandwidth applications and web-based add-ons. Moreover, there are still enormous business chances to adapt, to optimize, and to exploit in the already existing network-infrastructures in Eastern Europe as well as in the Third World.

Profile-based IN Service Provision for Third Generation Mobile Communication Networks

The number of mobile users requiring high-quality and mobility-related services is increasing ever so rapidly. An important issue is efficient management of service provisioning, locating mobile users as well as operating network service databases. In this paper, we introduce a system model that integrates the intelligent network (IN) and mobile communication networks, thus providing fast, flexible IN service design, creation, and provision independent of the infrastructure of the diverse communication networks. This paper also examines a profile-based replication strategy, a user profile replication (UPR) that can reduce the update costs. We also present a method to distribute network databases and service control management of the VLRs and MSC/SSPs by taking into account user mobility behaviour. A most frequent location area (MFLA) is introduced which also reduces the number of location updates in such a way that the change of the location information and the service profile database are managed by the VLR/MFLA of the user instead by the HLR/SCP. With the MFLA concept, the currently centralized database and the service control management becomes distributed. This reduces the communication (signaling messages) and computational cost (database accesses) as compared to the distributed VLR scheme and a reference scheme for UMTS/IMT-2000 regarding IN service provision and location management.

Erratum to: Telecommunication Network Intelligence

Erratum to: H.R. van As (Ed.) Telecommunication Network Intelligence DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-35522-1