Moving network support and QoS control for UMTS networks

UNITS, a third-generation mobile communications system, has the feature of a high rate in the wireless link and is expected to provide various services. When the rate of the wireless link is raised, it is expected that the communications configuration will be expanded to one in which multiple terminals share a radio bearer through a mobile node, rather than the communications configuration in which each mobile terminal occupies a radio bearer. UMTS manages packet communications via the PDP context. A mechanism is established in which the QoS is controlled for each bearer, which is defined for each PDP context. However, the communications configuration in which multiple users on a bearer communicate with different counterparts with various QoS conditions is not considered. This paper proposes to integrate packet communications from multiple terminals of a UMTS network on a radio bearer with QoS control. By integrating the radio bearer, the handover processing load can be reduced. It is also shown that the proposed QoS control is effective in reducing transport delay. (C) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 88(5): 28-38, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).