Dynamic bandwidth adaptation using mobile IP in hybrid cellular networks

Abstract

As cellular packet data services become widely deployed by the rollout of the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and 3G cellular networks, the packet-switched cellular network is emerging as an alternative to the existing circuit-switched cellular network. While the circuit data service provides wireless bandwidth guarantees, the packet data service offers better radio resource utilization due to its packet-switched multiplexing principle applied in the air interface. Therefore, the capability of having a data service over either the circuit-switched radio or the packet-switched radio provides a tradeoff between the perceived QoS and the radio utilization. This paper proposes a novel framework for dynamic bandwidth adaptation that allows an ongoing data traffic to alternate between the circuit data service and the packet data service using Mobile IP in the hybrid cellular network. Our approach can be used as a tool to handle the dynamically changing load in a cell and also easily deployed in any hybrid cellular network where the circuit and packet data services coexist. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.