Field Evaluation of a 4G "True-IP" network

This article presents field evaluation results of an IP-based architecture for heterogeneous environments, covering UMTS-like TD-CDMA (Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access) wireless access technology, wireless and wired LANs, that has been developed under the aegis of the IST Moby Dick project. The architecture treats all transmission capabilities as basic physical and data-link layers, and attempts to replace all higher-level tasks by IP- based strategies. The Moby Dick architecture incorporates mobile-IPv6, fast handover, AAA-control (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting), Charging and Quality of Service. The architecture allows for an optimized control on the radio link layer resources. The Moby Dick architecture has been implemented and was evaluated on field trials with multiple services. I. INTRODUCTION This paper presents results obtained in an IP-based architecture for heterogeneous environments, covering UMTS-like TD-CDMA wireless access technology, wireless and wired LANs. This architecture was developed under the aegis of the IST Moby Dick project. It is briefly explained here; detailed description can be found in the references mentioned all along this paper. This architecture treats all transmission capabilities as basic physical and data-link layers and replaces all higher-level tasks by IP- based signalling strategies. The architecture developed incorporates aspects of mobile-IPv6, fast handover (FHO), Authentication, Authorization, Accounting (AAA)-control, and Quality of Service (QoS), while further supporting optimised control on the radio link layer resources. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section II summarises all the aspects tackled by the Moby Dick architecture focusing on the building blocks and is followed in Section III by the description on how they are integrated in the two Moby Dick tests beds. Section IV describes our evaluation on the Moby Dick's implemented solution. In Section V, we discuss some critical issues of 4th Generation (4G) networks, based on the experience achieved in our test beds. Section VI concludes the paper.