Seamless roaming in heterogeneous circuit-switched and IP networks is key for successful migration towards all-IP. The Unified Mobility Manager (UMM) keeps track of users' locations whatever network they are roaming, and that routes calls from any originating to any terminating network. In a UMM enabled network, calls are addressed to users and dynamically routed to the active devices. This notion of user mobility breaks up the traditional coupling of addresses and devices, and replaces it with rules for the dynamic mapping from logical to device addresses. We present the UMM multi-protocol subscriber base that is built upon the concept of Incoming Call Handling (ICH) profiles that are the addressable entities in the UMM. An ICH profile contains all address level service data as well as the routing rules to the actual terminating devices. We also present our implementation of the UMM subscriber base in detail, and compare the UMM approach with two other approaches - a federated approach and an approach that combines ANSI-41 user mobility with GAIT interworking.

Session-based Internet protocol (IP) applications, such as Internet telephony, are an important component of the emerging mobile Internet. The ubiquitous availability of these services is critical to the success of the mobile Internet. Because all-IP networks will be deployed in phases and current mobile telecommunication systems will be in operation for decades to come, the interworking and migration between current network services and all-IP services is a key problem. In this paper, we address seamless roaming for session initiation protocol-based services across current cellular telecommunication networks and emerging all-IP wireless networks, such as those using third-generation and WiFi networks. We present an abstract mobility model, and map this model to three basic approaches for supporting seamless mobility: a master-slave approach, a federated system, and a unified approach. We discuss the challenges and implementation of an instance of the unified mobility management approach, called the Unified Mobility Manager, and then compare the tradeoffs of the three systems using a comparative performance analysis. We conclude that unified mobility management is most efficient if a great deal of interworking is required, and as more users invoke IP-based services; the federated approach is efficient when a single network technology is dominant and data access is limited, but requires sharing of data across networks; the master-slave approach is the least efficient, but is easy to introduce if the number of network types is small.

Next generation wireless networks will rely heavily on packet transport for both data and voice services. We describe the Router for Integrated Mobile Access (RIMA) system, which is the core network element of an integrated wireless packet network. RIMA acts as a mobile switching center for standard cellular telephony users, and a mobile router for wireless packet data users. RIMA includes a novel call processing system that supports several types of telephony services, and a new IP mobility protocol, called HAWAII, that efficiently manages the IP mobility of data and packet voice users. We discuss issues with providing wireless packet service, present a network architecture based on RIMA to address those issues, and describe a research prototype of the system.

This paper addresses an optimal link capacity design problem for self-healing asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks based on two different restoration schemes: line restoration and end-to-end restoration. Given a projected traffic demand, capacity and flow assignment is jointly optimized to find an optimal capacity placement. The problem can be formulated as a large-scale linear programming. The basis matrix can be readily factorized into an LU form by taking advantage of its special structure, which results in a substantial reduction on the computation time of the revised simplex method. A row generation and deletion mechanism is developed to cope with the explosive number of constraints for the end-to-end restoration-based networks. In self-healing networks, end-to-end restoration schemes have been considered more advantageous than line restoration schemes because of a possible reduction of the redundant capacity to construct a fully restorable network. A comparative analysis is presented to clarify the benefit of end-to-end restoration schemes quantitatively in terms of the minimum resource installation cost. Several networks with diverse topological characteristics as well as multiple projected traffic demand patterns are employed in the experiments to see the effect of various network parameters. The results indicate that the network topology has a significant impact on the required resource installation cost for each restoration scheme. Contrary to a wide belief in the economic advantage of the end-to-end restoration scheme, this study reveals that the attainable gain could be marginal for a well-connected and/or unbalanced network.

In self-healing networks, end-to-end restoration schemes have been considered more advantageous than line restoration schemes because of a possible cost reduction of the total capacity to construct a fully restorable network. This paper clarifies the benefit of end-to-end restoration schemes quantitatively through a comparative analysis of the minimum link capacity installation cost. A jointly optimal capacity and flow assignment algorithm is developed for the self-healing ATM networks based on end-to-end and line restoration. Several networks with diverse topological characteristics as well as multiple projected traffic demand patterns are employed in the experiments to see the effect of various network parameters. The results indicate that the network topology has a significant impact on the required resource installation cost for each restoration scheme. Contrary to a wide belief in the economic advantage of the end-to-end restoration scheme, this study reveals that the attainable gain could be marginal for a well-connected and/or unbalanced network.

The advent of high-capacity optical fiber has increased the impact of a network failure in high-speed networks since a large volume of data can be lost even in a short outage. Self-healing algorithms have previosly been proposed to achieve fast restoration from a failure, but their success greatly depends on how traffic is distributed and how spare capacity is dimensioned over the network when a failure happens. Thus, in order to offer better network survivability, it is crucial that a network manager realizes a restorable traffic assignment in response to changing traffic demand and facility network configuration. The authors address the problem of virtual path routing for survivable asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks. An algorithm is developed to find a virtual path configuration and bandwidth assignment that minimizes the expected amount of lost flow upon restoration from a network failure. The concept of two-step restoration is introduced to achieve fast restoration as well as optimal reconfiguration. The problem can be formulated as a nonlinear, nonsmooth multicommodity flow problem with linear constraints. A modified flow deviation method is developed to obtain a near-optimal solution, where premature convergence to a nonsmooth point could be avoided by adjusting an optimization parameter. The result of the performance evaluation indicates that the proposed routing scheme can detect the links that are vulnerable to a failure under the current traffic demand pattern and adjust a flow so as to improve the network survivability level.

Addresses the problem of virtual path routing for survivable ATM networks. An algorithm is developed to find a virtual path configuration and bandwidth assignment which minimizes the expected amount of lost flow upon network restoration from a failure. The concept of two-step restoration is introduced to achieve fast restoration as well as optimal reconfiguration. The problem can be formulated as a nonlinear nonsmooth multicommodity flow problem with linear constraints. A modified flow deviation approach is developed to obtain the steepest decent direction for a nonsmooth objective function. Based on the proposed scheme, convergence to a near-optimum is possible by properly adjusting optimization parameters.>