Chapter Fifteen. Evolution of IP Wireless Networks

The evolution of the Internet and mobile networks toward the creation of the mobile Internet is driven by technological advances in the field of networking protocols, radio technologies as well as services. The major factors influencing the evolution of the Internet are the pervasiveness of PCs and the established telecommunications infrastructure. As the number of wireless devices capable of accessing the Internet and providing new services that are based on data increases , the networks that are currently focused on delivering voice services will also evolve. Eventually the mobile networks will be a part of the evolving global Internet as any other network today. With the evolution of society toward an information centricity, access to information and services anywhere and anytime will be a key requirement. Devices and networks will evolve to provide the kind of access to information that we have today for a small set of applications such as voice.

The end-to-end architecture of the Internet has been a facilitator in itself and has enabled its extraordinary growth and usage. The architecture of the Internet, has been the driver for the smooth evolution of the core and access networks. Mobile networks have also been evolving in parallel. Growth rates in terms of number of mobile subscribers passed the billion mark in the first half of 2002. It is also expected that the number of mobile users will soon surpass the number of Internet users. The evolution of these two types of networks, which primarily offer different services today, is leading toward convergence and the creation of the mobile Internet.

This chapter focuses on the evolution of the technologies covered in the earlier parts of the book. Evolution of networks from the two major standards perspective, 3GPP and 3GPP2, is considered as well as evolution of 802.11 wireless LANs. Evolution of services in the wireless networks is covered briefly .