Chapter Nine. IP in UMTS Networks


Second-generation wireless digital networks have been around for the last decade and more.These networks have provided voice as the primary service. Data services were essentially an add-on to these networks. Typical data rates ranged from 9.6 to 14.4 Kbps.With the explosion of the Internet and the vast array of services and applications that the Internet enabled, users felt the need to access these services via wireless terminals. One of the impediments to providing data services in 2G networks was the limitation of low data rates, which are a result of the radio interface being designed to handle primarily voice. Second-generation radio networks were spectrally inefficient for handling packet data services.

Market trends in the mid-1990s drove networks toward convergence. So the telecom, datacom, and IT networks started network evolution toward a unification path . Wireless networks needed to capitalize on the Internet potential by creating an extension to the Internet via the wireless medium. This has been refered to in various publications as the wireless Internet. The wireless Internet is not a new network in itself but rather an extension of the existing Internet over wireless networks. However, in order to create this wireless Internet, next -generation networks had to provide higher data rates, enhanced air interfaces for supporting packet data, and quality of service for a rich variety of applications. In addition, the rapid increase in the number of wireless subscribers has fueled the need for improving the spectral efficiency and capacity of current networks for voice services as well. The ITU formed the IMT-2000 forum to address the needs of the mobile telecommunication industry, and this resulted in the creation of the driver for third-generation networks.

Requirements for 3G networks with respect to radio access networks, core networks, and data rates were specified by IMT-2000. The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is an architecture that was developed to meet these 3G requirements.

This chapter introduces UMTS, which was introduced to provide 3G services and the introduction of a new radio access network to meet the 3G goals, referred to as UMTS terrestrial radio access networks (UTRAN). This chapter discusses the UMTS system architecture, radio network, and core network functionalities. It also explains how a UMTS network can be used to transport IP datagrams and enable applications based on IP to be available to the mobile/wireless user .



IP in Wireless Networks
IP in Wireless Networks
ISBN: 0130666483
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 164

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