Convergence of UMTS and Internet Services for End-to-end Quality of Service Support

Internet evolution delineated through the last years has urged the wireless network community to adopt the support of the IP protocol. The deployment of IP multimedia services with guaranteed quality of service in both the access and core network is one of the primary requirements for 3G wireless networks. This paper focuses on issues regarding interoperability with external, “wired” QoS-enabled IP networks, in order to support end-to-end services over both the wireless and the wired environments. The paper first briefly describes the RCL network architecture that supports QoS based on the concept of Differentiated Services, focusing on the supported network services. Subsequently, the UMTS QoS architecture and traffic classes are presented. Last, the interoperability aspects between the two networks are discussed, mainly at the QoS management level, supported by simulations for two traffic classes. The main outcome of the paper is that interoperability can be achieved only if both networks offer services with common characteristics and QoS requirements.