Chapter 1: Project Description

1.1 Introduction
The exponential growth of the Internet and the proliferation of cellular mobile systems and WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) systems throughout home and business applications generate competition and cooperation among the two different systems [1]. In the near future, multimedia applications which are now mainly achieved by wired and fixed Internet users will also be widely achieved by mobile Internet users as well. To achieve mobile wireless multimedia services require the development of the Internet, cellular communication network and WLAN network to be integrated to provide the emerging services [2]. The integration of cellular network, WLAN and fixed Internet in an all IP-based network system will seamlessly integrate different technologies and networks to satisfy increasing user demands [3, 4]. The technologies shall combine different current existing and future wireless network technologies to ensure freedom of movement and seamless roam from one technology to another. The networks are integrated with one core network and several radio access networks, which are presented in Figure 1-1. A core interface is used for communication with the core network and radio access networks, and a collection of radio interfaces is used for communication with the radio access networks and mobile users. In fact, the

integration of cellular network, WLAN and fixed Internet combines multiple radio access interfaces into a single network to provide seamless roaming/handoff and best connected services [5]. Therefore, the integration of cellular network, WLAN and fixed Internet is an evolution not only to move beyond the limitations and problems of

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the current wireless networks, but also to enhance the quality of services, to increase the bandwidth and to reduce the cost of the resources.

Figure 1-1: The Integration Architecture

Academic researchers and service providers have both thought of ways to integrate the WLAN systems, mobile cellular systems and fixed Internet [6, 7, and 8]. The desire was to gain the increased data rates provided by WLAN working together with the mobility provided by cellular systems. In the history of cellular network, it has experienced three generations in its life [9]. The first generation is an analog system which is to be used for public with voice service only; the second generation is based on digital technology, which can support text messaging. The success and the growth of demand for online information via the Internet prompted the development of cellular wireless systems with improved data

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connectivity, which ultimately lead to the latest third generation (3G) systems. For third generation networks, although the coverage and the quality of the service have both increased dramatically, but as it was not within the original scope of the design of cellular networks, indoor coverage and data capacity are still significantly limited. Current researches are now focusing on the 4th generation wireless mobile Internet networks. The features of 4G may be summarized with one word integration. 4G will integrate current existing and future networks to provide mobile Internet for users. This project effort will focus on bandwidth utilization efficiency through integrating WLAN and CDMA2000 networks resources to improve performance of the data transmission. The first chapter defines the problems investigated by this research and the remaining of the chapter is organized as follows. Section 1.1 is a brief introduction and background. The motivations for this research are presented in Section 1.2. Section 1.3 states the research problems investigated. We will present the research objectives in section 1.4. Section 1.5 describes the research scopes and our solution will be presented in section 1.6. Finally, we present the layout of our thesis in section 1.7.

1.2 Motivation
At the beginnings of usage, Internet and cellular telephone were primarily limited to academic and scientific institutions because of high costs. Today, the widespread use of the Internet for communications, file transfer and World Wide Web connectivity is commonplace for most business and home users. Just as there has been an unstoppable growth in the Internet, the number of cellular telephones with Internet access capabilities has similarly advanced at an amazing pace. Today, wireless

technology is getting increasingly popular and important in the cellular telephone 1-3

network and the Internet field which have altered the telecommunication industry and peoples life [10]. As the cellular telephone and Internet proliferate (especially access with WLAN), researchers and service providers have attempted to integrate them. WLAN systems were designed for indoor data traffic and have demonstrated their ability to support the needs of limited mobility indoor clients. On the other hand, the cellular networks were designed for wide coverage, but with lower data rates. For these reasons, many supported the eventual convergence of the two communications networks to provide better services in terms of larger capacities and higher data rates and improved coverage for their users [11]. The standards developing bodies have defined standards for the interoperation of the two systems [12] and several researchers have thought to determine the best methods to interwork the two systems so that the integration of WLAN and cellular network can be done in the 4th generation mobile networks [13, 14]. The third generation (3G) of wireless technology has several features which are enhanced roaming, broadband data services with video and multimedia, superior voice quality, up to 2M bit/sec and connection for data transmission always-on [15]. 4G is a research item for next-generation wide-area cellular radio, where the speed can be up to 1Gbit/sec [16], the QoS will be guaranteed and the bandwidth will be utilized efficiently. Thus, 4G is an evolution not only to move beyond the limitations and problems of 3G, but also to enhance the quality of services, to increase the bandwidth and to reduce the cost of the resource. The comparison table of 3G and 4G is shown in Table 1-1. From the comparison table, the main distinguishing factors between 3G and 4G should be data rates. 4G can support at least 100Mbps peak rates in full-mobility wide

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area coverage and 1Gbps in low-mobility local area coverage. The speeds of 3G can be up to 2Mbps, which is much slower than the speeds of 4G. Items Speed Services Core Network Technologies 3G Up to 2Mbps Difficulty of global roaming Wide-area concept circuit and packet switching WCDM CDMA2000 TD-SCDMA 4G Full-mobility: up to 100Mbps Low-mobility: up to 1Gbps Roaming smoothly Broadband IP-based entirely packet switching All access convergence including: LAS-CDMA OFDM, MC-CDMA UWB Network-LMDS

Table1-1: The Comparison Table of 3G and 4G [17]

In the comparison Table 1-1, there are three standards for 3G, which are WCDMA, CDMA2000 and TD_SCDMA. But in 4G, these three access technologies have been integrated into MC-CDMA. In addition, 4G technologies will also be integrated with LAS-CDMA, OFDM, UWB and Network-LMDS as shown in Table 1-1 above [17]. LAS-CDMA (Large Area Synchronized Code Division Multiple Access) is a patented 4G wireless technology developed for high-speed data rates, which cover for global area, called world cell. OFDM stands for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, Transmitting large amounts of digital data over a radio wave. OFDM works by splitting the radio signal into multiple smaller sub-signals that are then transmitted simultaneously at different frequencies to the receiver. MC-CDMA stands for Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access, which is actually OFDM with a CDMA overlay. The users are multiplexed with orthogonal codes to distinguish users in MC-CDMA. Both of OFDM and MC-CDMA can be signed for running in wide area, called macro cell.

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The Network-LMDS (Local Multipoint Distribution System) is the broadband wireless technology used to carry voice, data, Internet and video services in 25GHz and higher spectrum. It can be designed for running in smaller coverage area, called micro cell. The Ultra Wide Band (UWB) is designed for indoor or underground area only, which is for very limited distance in the building, called pico cell. These attempts to integrate data services into cellular networks have brought the limitations of both the Internet and the cellular network into sharp focus. The

Internets best effort model is limited in its ability to support the real time constraints of a voice conversation. While, the cellular telephone networks low data rate is not sufficient for web browsing or large file transfers. Ongoing research is aimed at improving Quality of Service (QoS) for the Internet, and increasing data rates on cellular networks [18]. Thus, our research is motivated by the need to provide higher data rates, wider coverage and ease of mobility. This idea is also what drives the 4th generation wireless mobile Internet that proposing the ideas of integrating the current existing networks such as cellular networks, WLAN networks and fixed Internet networks. One of the international bodies, the CDMA Develop Group (CDG) has also issued the integrating architecture of WLAN-CDMA2000 [19]. This integrated architecture becomes the basis of our research in which we will try to achieve higher data rates, wider coverage and ease of mobility. The problem of the integrating architecture of WLAN and CDMA2000 is that the bandwidth is not efficiently used. Since WLAN bandwidth is much wider than CDMA2000 networks, all of users application would prefer to connect to WLAN network to achieve higher data rates resulting in WLAN network busy and CDMA2000 network bandwidth is unused.

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1.3 Problem Statement

This research will try to answer the following questions: How to utilize the bandwidth efficiently under the integration of WLAN network and CDMA2000 network, or in the other words, how to complement the two networks to provide ubiquitous highspeed wireless Internet connectivity to mobile users. There is no single wireless network architecture that can provide a low delay, high data rates, and wide coverage for data services to a large number of mobile users. WLAN is capable of providing significantly higher capacity for indoor environments and data traffic as compared to cellular networks (such as MC-CDMA) that can provide large coverage but with lesser data rate. However wireless overlapping network architecture (a hierarchical structure of room-size, building-size, and wide area data networks) may solve the problems by providing network connectivity in an efficient and scalable way [20]. CDMA Development Group (CDG) has issued convergence architecture which combine pico-cell, micro-cell, macro-cell and worldwide-cell for 4G as presented in Figure 1-2 [21]. This Figure shows that there are four types of networks access which are satellite-cell, macro-cell, micro-cell and pico-cell. Based on the Figure 1-2, we can see that: i. In In-building area, there are four wireless networks coverage i.e. by Pico-cell, Micro-cell, Macro-cell and Satellite-cell; ii. In Urban area, there are three wireless networks coverage i.e. by Miro-cell, Macro-cell and Satellite-cell; and iii. In Suburban area, there are at least two wireless networks coverage i.e. by Macro-cell and Satellite-cell.

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Figure 1-2: 4G Coverage Areas [21]

From Figure 1-2, we can see that 4G networks will cover most of the areas by more than one wireless network. There are many of the current researches focus on the interworking of two or more of these networks. In particular to our research area, i.e. interworking between WLAN and CDMA2000 networks, some of the researches are related with the handoff from CDMA2000 network to WLAN in order to get higher data rates [22, 23, and 24]. Other researches are related with the service coverage provided by both of the WLAN and the CDMA2000 networks in order to get wider coverage [25 and 26]. There are disadvantages in their approaches. From the architecture, we can clearly see that more than one network will cover all the areas. Total handoff means that the others wireless networks resources will be wasted since only one network will serve the mobile node. In other words, when a mobile node comes into these

overlapping areas, it is only one network that provides wireless services for the mobile node and the other wireless network resources are not used. integration may cause network resources are not fully used. Thus, the

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The best way to solve this problem is to combine these different cells so that all of them can provide services to all users. From theoretically point of view, any two network cells can be combined. In our research, we focus on combining micro and macro cells because from the Figure 1-2, it shows that most of wireless network services are provided by micro and macro cells. In Figure 1-2, the micro and macro areas are related with WLAN and cellular networks. Therefore, this research effort focuses on solving the problem to supporting higher data traffic in overlapping area through Dual-bandwidth data path.

1.4 Research Objectives and Contributions

These research objectives are: The development of a Dual-bandwidth data path based on the bandwidth disparity of WLAN and CDMA2000 networks. The bandwidth of WLAN network is much wider than CDMA2000 network. For both networks, the uplink load is much lighter than the downlink load. Our proposed objective is therefore to design the Dual-bandwidth data path to supply uplink services by CDMA2000 network and downlink services by WLAN network; The design of the protocol called Bandwidth Optimization Control Protocol (BOCP) which is related with the Dual-bandwidth data path; The creation of a simulation environment using ns2 Java version to show the establish processing of the Dual-bandwidth data path and prove the functionalities of the Dual-bandwidth data path through BOCP protocol; Thus, the primary contributions of this research are: The Dual-bandwidth data path: The first significant contribution is to establish a connection between WLAN and CDMA2000 networks. The new

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data connection is based on the two network bandwidth and it named as the Dual-bandwidth data path; The Bandwidth Optimization Control Protocol: The second significant contribution is to propose the protocol that will allow the Dual-bandwidth data path between the WLAN and the CDMA2000 networks. The Bandwidth Optimization Control Protocol is used to establish the Dual-bandwidth data path between these two different networks; Higher Data Rates: The functionality of the bandwidth optimization control protocol is to distribute data into the two networks for transmission, in which CDMA2000 network is used for uplink traffic services and WLAN network is used for downlink traffic services in order to utilize network resources efficiently and increase data rates; and A network level simulation tool: The system design and implementation is based on ns2 Java version (Java Network Simulator), a network level simulation tool which can be used to support future research.

1.5 Scope of the Research

To provide wireless mobile Internet access for mobile users, future 4G mobile communication networks are expected to integrate CDMA2000 and WLAN networks so that different access networks can be used for uplink and downlink traffic [27 and 28]. For our research, we will focus on WLAN for supporting high throughput and CDMA2000 network for supporting large coverage in order to get higher data rates for downlink. This can be useful for user applications such as web browsing and email, which are asymmetrical in nature causing more downlink than uplink bandwidth.

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Since 4G network is a research item in academy, this research uses simulator to get performance and performance evaluation. We select ns2 Java (Java Network Simulator) version as our system platform, because the Java Network Simulator (JNS) allows developer of networking protocols to simulate their protocols in a controlled environment.

1.6 Research Design

In our research, the targeted network environment (Figure 1-3) is an infrastructurebased wireless network within WLAN and CDMA2000 cell overlapping areas to allow mobile nodes to connect to multiple neighboring base stations and access points simultaneously. Seamless services and applications via different access networks and technologies that maximize the use of available spectrum will be the driving forces for future developments [29]. Therefore, this research is motivated by the desire to improve data rates over the WLAN-CDMA2000 integrated system. This research considers the bandwidth disparity of CDMA2000 1.23Mbs channels and WLAN 11Mbs channels. We propose Dual-bandwidth data path and bandwidth optimization protocol based on the disparity bandwidth so that mobile node can send requests through CDMA2000 channels and get reply through WLAN channels.

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Internet HA CN

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Figure 1-3: Targeted Network Environment Overlapping network coverage on WLAN & Cellular

1.7 Thesis Layout

This chapter defined the research problems addressed at the beginning of the thesis. These research problems are highlighted after giving a general introduction and summarizing the research background. Following these research statement, we presented our research motivations and these motivations direct to the research questions. Based on these research problems, motivations and question, scope of the research and the research objectives were presented. The rests of the thesis are organized as follows. Chapter 2 presents the theoretical background and a review of relevant literature for both CDMA2000-WLAN interworking and packet level aggregation in the context of WLAN. Chapter 3 describes the methodology and presents results specific to the CDMA2000-WLAN interworking simulation tools. Chapter 4 describes the design and methodology used to develop and test the BOCP protocol enhancement and provides an overview of the

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simulation design with results specific to BOCP. In chapter 5, we implement the simulation system and analysis the simulation results. In chapter 6 we conclude this thesis by highlighting our contributions and also the limitations before finally suggesting several future directions that can enhance this research further.

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