The document discusses the emerging field of wireless ATM networks. It notes that both wireless technologies and ATM are still in their infancy, with no standards yet established. The document outlines some key aspects of wireless ATM networks, including using small picocell coverage areas served by base stations connected via a wired ATM backbone. It also discusses challenges like locating mobile units and establishing connections in the network. Overall, the document examines issues in developing protocols for wireless ATM networks to support broadband communications in the future.
Wireless andATM ( Asynchronous Transfer Mode) are in
it's infancy. No standards have been defined by either the
ATM Forum or ITU-T, yet. Research have been going on
to develop a protocol that will run on wireless medium
without much delay and errors. ATM-type wireless
networks will play an important role in the broadband
communications network of the future
3.
Since thelate seventies, we have been watching movies
and television serials, in which people are using mobile
equipment to communicate and exchange multimedia
traffic over small, handheld portable equipment.
But now, due to the advent of high speed networks ( such
as ATM), and recent advancement in mobile
communications, visions of past are fast in reality.
4.
Wireless systemsare emerging, and the industry is still in
it's infancy. Currently, wireless LAN technologies consists
of infrared (IR), and microwave radio, ranging from
frequencies in the region of GHz in Europe to infrared
frequencies.
Some of the wireless technologies are:
1. Spread Spectrum (CDMA)
2. Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
5.
ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) has been
advocated as an important technology for the wide area
interconnection of heterogeneous networks.
In ATM networks, the data is divided into small, fixed
length units called cells. The cell is 53 bytes.
Each cell contain a 5 byte header which consists of
identification, control priority and routing information. The
rest 48 bytes are the actual data.
6.
ATM switches supporttwo kinds of interfaces:
User-network interface (UNI) :UNI connects ATM end systems
(hosts, routers etc.) to an ATM switch.
Network-node interface (NNI):NNI may be imprecisely defined
as an interface connection between two ATM switches
together . The ITU-T Recommendation requires that an ATM
connection be identified with connection identifiers that are
assigned for each user connection in the ATM network.
7.
There are twofundamental types of ATM connections
Permanent Virtual Connections (PVC):A PVC is a
connection set up by some external mechanism, typically
network management, in which a set of switches
between an ATM source and destination ATM systems
are programmed with the appropriate VPI/VCI values.
PVCs always require some manual configuration
8.
Switched VirtualConnections (SVC):An SVC is a
connection that is set up automatically through signaling
protocol. SVCs does not require the manual interaction
needed to set up PVCs and, as such, are likely to be
much more widely used. All higher layer protocols
operating over ATM primarily uses SVCs.
9.
Since thebeginning, the concept of ATM is end-to-end
communications i.e. in a Wide Area Network
environment, the communication protocol will be the
same i.e. ATM, and companies will no longer have to buy
extra equipment ( like routers or gateways) to
interconnect their LANs( local area networks). Also, ATM
is considered to reduce the complexity of the network
and improve the flexibility while providing end-end
consideration of traffic performance
10.
The conceptof Wireless ATM is
Radio ATM + Mobile ATM
Architecture:
The architectureproposed by most researchers,
composed of a large number of small transmission cells,
called Pico cells. Each Pico cell is served by a base
station.
All the base station in the network are connected via the
wired ATM network.
14.
To avoidhard boundaries between Pico-cells, the base
stations can operate on the same frequency.
The basic role of the base station is interconnection
between the LAN or WAN and the wireless subnets, and
also to transfer packets and converting them to the wired
ATM network from the mobile units.
Network Location andConnection Establishment:
In order to establish connections between the mobile unit
and the base station, the mobile must be located.
Searching and registration can cause some problems.
1.Searching: Involves a form of broadcast in which
the whole network is queried.
2.Registration: Objects are responsible for their
own registration at a well known registration point.
17.
I havetried to analyze different issues discuss to
Wireless ATM, and discussed some of the ideas of
different researchers working on it.
Wireless and ATM, both are relatively new field, and are
still in it's infancy. No standards have been set for
Wireless ATM.
ATM-type wireless networks will play an important role in
the broadband communications networks of the future.