Département Réseau, Sécurité et Multimédia Rapport d'Activités 2008

Rethought Mobility Management in Future Multi-technologiesAccess NetworksResearch Staff : Xavier Lagrange, Jean-Marie Bonnin – Ph.D. Student: Philippe BertinKeywords : ambient networks, mobile networks, heterogeneous access networksPartners & Funding : France Telecom Thesis with PracomDescriptionIn the near future, our network environmentwill be undoubtedly highly heterogeneous interms of access technologies of course, butalso regarding the functional architecture. Asdifferent access networks have beenstandardized by different organizations, theyoperate in ways which are based on differentassumptions and with a diversity ofoptimization goals and means.The aim of this work is to define a common(minimal) access network functionalarchitecture able to integrate different accesstechnologies coming from differentstandardization bodies. This architectureshould be able to benefit from mesh as well ascollaborative network to extend its coverage.The mobility management should take intoaccount resources and QoS management in anetwork centric way to allow integratedoperators to offer a seamless service to itscustomer.AchievementsA state of the art on the fixed and mobileaccess network architecture have beenachieved. A list of essential functions we foundin the different architecture is on the way witha focus on those related to mobilitymanagement.setup and maintain tunnels in the network foreach attached or active mobile node. Otheralternatives to tunneling where proposed someyears ago based on per-host routingapproaches (Cellular IP, Hawaii) but did notmeet standards adoption yet. Per-host routinghas the advantage of being easily introducedin existing IP routing protocols withoutmodifications. We evaluated both approachesin a WLAN environment thanks to simulations.Results show that handover delay is negligiblyimpacted in our per-host scheme, whereas it isstrongly penalized in tunneling approaches.Future worksFor the following of the work, a multitechnologiesaccess architecture will beproposed. Its aim is to support neighboringbased connectivity management schemesbetween Base Stations and Access Points fromdifferent technologies (e.g. 2G, WCDMA, LTE,Wimas, WiFi, any new 4/5G technology…). Weconsider that access network entities will bepart of the same access network in order toallow a given terminal and communication flowto make use of optimized connectivity adaptedto its own requirements. In this novelapproach, any new technology could be easilydeployed using the common networkinfrastructure, architecture and protocols whileinter-technologies convergence mechanismsimpacts becomes negligible.A preliminary study has been completed on theuse of host routing approaches to supportmobility management in packet based wirelessnetworks where it is generally realized withvarious tunneling protocols. Tunnelingapproaches requires specific mechanisms toPracom’s Annual Report 2008 25