Luca Dell'Uomo

The mobility management and authentication/authorization mechanisms in mobile networks beyond 3G

The paper presents the initial results obtained from a theoretical study on mobility management with QoS and authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) issues in an enhanced UMTS-WLAN environment that is the one of the IST European project WINE GLASS (Wireless Ip NEtwork as a Generic platform for Location Aware Service Support). The proposed solution for AAA and QoS mobility management issues aims to exploit the potential of IP-based wireless mobile multimedia networking evolving from 3G towards 4G systems. The main WINE GLASS objective is to exploit and enhance new IP-based techniques to support terminal mobility and soft-guaranteed QoS in a wireless Internet architecture. The proposed framework incorporates both UMTS and WLAN access technologies, enhancing the UMTS backbone in order to support fully an all-IP solution. Moreover, the project has the scope to explore the potential of access technologies in enabling location-aware and QoS-aware application services for wireless mobile users. A wireless Internet testbed is to be developed with the aim of integrating an IPv6 backbone and UTRAN and WLAN access to an IP-based 4G core network. This testbed will be a means to investigate, develop, test, integrate, validate and evaluate innovative techniques and applications.

Radio access networks beyond 3G: a first comparison of architectures

We consider the role and possible architectures of access networks in systems beyond the current third generation. We consider the motivations for defining specialised infrastructure to support mobile radio access, and look at the various criteria for determining the scope of such systems. We then introduce and compare the access network architectures of four widely varied IST projects, BRAHMS, BRAIN/MIND, DRiVE and WINEGLASS. We compare the different approaches that these projects have taken, and conclude with a view on how this can provide a pointer to future access network architectures.