An Efficient Location Management Protocol for Wireless ATM Customer Premises Networks

In this paper we present a new location management protocol for wireless ATM networks, called LMCP (Location Management and Control Protocol). This protocol is based on the PNNI (Private Network-to-Network Interface) routing functionality to advertise the movement of mobile terminals within predefined areas. Moreover, LMCP uses specialized entities to store and retrieve the current location area of the mobile terminals. These entities are located in mobility enhanced switches that control the execution of mobility procedures (e.g., handovers). The main benefit from the application of LMCP is the establishment of connections that do not contain any misrouted segments. Furthermore, it requires minor modifications to the PNNI and enables its inter-working with other location management mechanisms. The protocol is compared with other similar mechanisms, and its efficiency is demonstrated by the results of an analytical model.