Impact of technology overlap in next-generation wireless heterogeneous systems

Abstract

The integration of different wireless access technologies is propelled by the need to support new services and better resource utilization in next-generation wireless networks. This integration complicates the system design due to the interaction of different factors including network-oriented, application-oriented, and user-oriented system parameters. In this work, we present an analytical framework to estimate different session-level performance metrics in two-tier systems, using the 3G-WLAN integrated network as an example. We investigate the impact of the amount of coverage overlap and the topology of the underlay technology on different session performance metrics as well as the total session cost. The obtained results show that clustering can significantly reduce the vertical-handoff signaling load and the forced termination probability of different applications in comparison with a random topology. Additionally, the proposed cost analysis provides design guidelines for developing economical WLAN management mechanisms to maintain reduced session cost with extended WLAN coverage. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2007.