System for enhanced network management jointly exploiting WLANs and other wireless network infrastructures : WLAN systems and interworking

Mobile multimedia services are expected to be in high demand from mobile wireless users on a worldwide scale. The research community and telecommunications industry have focused their efforts in providing suitable wireless networks for such services. The great advance achieved among wireless local area network (WLAN) technologies, combined with the current delays in deploying 3 G cellular networks, forces the network operators to investigate possible interworking mechanisms to exploit the broadband capabilities of WLANs jointly with currently deployed 2.5 G cellular networks, as well as other commercial broadband systems. The authors present a generic management platform, suitable for WLANs interworking with other wireless systems, targeting the implementation of a high-speed wireless environment and able to maintain multimedia services, especially at hot-spot locations. The main aim was to keep the functional layout of each individual wireless network as close as possible to its original form. Finally, the authors present examples of WLANs interworking with other wireless systems, using either real commercially deployed networks or laboratory testbeds.