Supporting user terminal mobility over an ATM/B-ISDN personal communications network

The authors present an integrated framework for implementing connection-oriented mobile bearer services (MBS) to support personal communications over an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)-based broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN) with an embedded intelligent network architecture characterized by intelligent mobile terminals. To support user terminal mobility, location-independent connection establishment and nondisruptive handoff between radio zones accessed from different network segments are required, subject to maintaining appropriate connection performance during user information exchange. The authors propose a new mobile virtual circuit (MVC) connection in the ATM layer with the above attributes, and a seamless handoff scheme using the MVC. They also propose an integrated per-call and per-cell congestion control mechanism for maintaining connection performance at each MVC connecting link.<<ETX>>