A transport-layer based simultaneous access scheme in integrated WLAN/UMTS mobile networks

Abstract

The integration of UMTS cellular network and wireless LANs enables users to achieve both the broad coverage of UMTS cellular network and the higher data rate of WLANs. In this paper, we present a transport-layer based simultaneous access scheme which enhances throughput by efficient use of these networks. Two representative transport protocols in the Internet, UDP and TCP, show significantly different behaviors against end-to-end delay and packet losses, and UMTS cellular network and WLANs have different packet losses and end-to-end delay characteristics. After prediction of UDP and TCP throughput in each network, each transport protocol is allocated to the network where total throughput can be maximized. We evaluate the proposed mechanism using NS-2 and show the improvement of the total throughput. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.