A call admission control framework for voice over WLANs

In this article a call admission control framework is presented for voice over wireless local area networks (WLANs). The framework, called WLAN voice manager, manages admission control for voice over IP (VoIP) calls with WLANs as the access networks. WLAN voice manager interacts with WLAN medium access control (MAC) layer protocols, soft-switches (VoIP call agents), routers, and other network devices to perform end-to-end (ETE) quality of service (QoS) provisioning and control for VoIP calls originated from WLANs. By implementing the proposed WLAN voice manager in the WLAN access network, a two-level ETE VoIP QoS control mechanism can be achieved: level 1 QoS for voice traffic over WLAN medium access and level 2 QoS for ETE VoIP services in the networks with WLANs as the local access. The implementation challenges of this framework are discussed for both level 1 and level 2. Possible solutions to the implementation issues are proposed and other remaining open issues are also addressed.     

Improving Voice and Data Services in Cellular/WLAN Integrated Networks by Admission Control

In this paper, we study voice and data service provisioning in an integrated system of cellular and wireless local area networks (WLANs). With the ubiquitous coverage of the cellular network and the disjoint deployment of WLANs in hot-spot areas, the integrated system has a two-tier overlaying structure. As an essential resource allocation aspect, admission control can be used to properly admit voice and data calls to the overlaying cells and WLANs. A simple admission scheme is proposed in this study to analyze the dependence of resource utilization and the impact of user mobility and traffic characteristics on admission parameters. Both admission control and rate control are considered to limit the input traffic to the WLAN, so that the WLAN operates in its most efficient states and effectively complements the cellular network. The call blocking/dropping probabilities and data call throughput are evaluated for effective and accurate derivation of the admission parameters. It is observed that the utilization varies with the configuration of admission parameters, which properly distributes the voice and data traffic load to the cells and WLANs. Mobility and traffic variability have a significant impact on the selection of the admission parameters.     

A delay-based admission control mechanism for multimedia support in IEEE 802.11e wireless LANs

Multimedia over IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs) has recently been the focus of many researchers due to its rapidly increasing popularity. Unlike their best-effort counterparts, multimedia applications have quality of service (QoS) needs typically expressed in terms of the maximum allowed delay and/or the minimum required throughput. Therefore, prior to accepting a multimedia application, the network must assure the satisfaction of its QoS requirements. In this paper, we develop a mechanism that can be used to control the admissibility of multimedia applications into WLANs. To develop the proposed mechanism, we first derive an analytical approximation of the delay experienced by packets when travelled through these networks. The analytical approximation of the delay is then used to propose an admission control mechanism for the enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) method used by the hybrid coordination function (HCF) of IEEE 802.11e. The proposed delay-based admission control mechanism is validated via simulations of voice traffic.     

A novel QoS‐aware MAC protocol for voice services over IEEE 802.11‐based WLANs

With the pervasive growth in the popularity of IEEE 802.11‐based wireless local area networks (WLANs) worldwide, the demand to support delay‐sensitive services such as voice has increased very rapidly. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on the medium access control (MAC) architectures and quality of service (QoS) provisioning issues for WLANs. The major challenges in providing QoS to voice services through WLAN MAC protocols are outlined and the solution approaches proposed in the literature are reviewed. To this end, a novel QoS‐aware wireless MAC protocol, called hybrid contention‐free access (H‐CFA) protocol and a call admission control technique, called traffic stream admission control (TS‐AC) algorithm, are presented. The H‐CFA protocol is based on a novel idea that combines two contention‐free wireless medium access approaches, that is, round‐robin polling and time‐division multiple access (TDMA)‐like time slot assignment, and it increases the capacity of WLANs through efficient silence suppression. The TS‐AC algorithm ensures efficient admission control for consistent delay‐bound guarantees and further maximizes the capacity through exploiting the voice characteristic that it can tolerate some level of inconsecutive packet loss. The benefits of the proposed schemes are demonstrated in the simulations results. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐adaptive routing protocols for integrating cellular networks,WLANs, and MANETs

A growing need to have ubiquitous connectivity has motivated our research to provide continuous connection between various wireless platforms such as cellular networks, wireless local area networks (WLANs), and mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). In this paper, we consider integration at the routing layer and propose two adaptable routing protocols (IRP‐RD and IRP‐PD) that exploit topology information stored at the fixed network components (cellular base stations and WLAN access points) for the route discovery and maintenance processes. Our proposed protocols can provide connectivity to the cellular network and/or WLAN hotspots through multihop routing, while differ in the gateway discovery approach used. In IRP‐RD, multihop routes to gateways to the cellular network or WLAN hot spots are discovered on demand, while in IRP‐PD out of coverage users proactively maintain routes to the gateways. Furthermore, proposed protocols can be used in any heterogeneous scenario, combining a cellular network and WLANs operating in infrastructure or ad hoc (MANET) mode. We provide simulation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed integrated routing protocols and show the advantages and drawbacks of each gateway discovery approach in different heterogeneous scenarios. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于信誉的延迟容忍网络激励方案

由于长延迟、频繁中断等特性,延迟容忍网络采用“存储-携带-转发”的路由方式实现报文的传递.这种传输方式建立在网络节点互相信任,诚实合作的假设之上.然而,由于受到自身资源的限制,网络中存在自私节点拒绝参与网络合作的行为,导致网络传输性能下降,甚至无法正常运行.针对此类问题,本文提出一种基于信誉的延迟容忍网络激励方案,鼓励节点共享资源,并约束自私行为.设计了一种观测协议,以解决延迟容忍网络环境下对网络节点行为的观测问题;提出了一种信誉模型,通过信任值评价节点的可信程度,从而优化路由决策,惩罚自私节点.仿真结果表明了本文提出的激励方案的有效性和可行性.     

Coexistence mechanisms for interference mitigation in the 2.4-GHz ISM band

Wireless technologies sharing the same frequency band and operating in the same environment often interfere with each other, causing severe decrease in performance. We propose two coexistence mechanisms based on traffic scheduling techniques that mitigate interference between different wireless systems operating in the 2.4-GHz industrial, medical, and scientific band. In particular, we consider IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs) and Bluetooth (BT) voice and data nodes, showing that the proposed algorithms can work when the two systems are able to exchange information as well as when they operate independently of one another. Results indicate that the proposed algorithms remarkably mitigate the interference between the IEEE 802.11 and BT technologies at the expense of a small additional delay in the data transfer. It is also shown that the impact of the interference generated by microwave ovens on the IEEE 802.11 WLANs performance can be significantly reduced through the mechanisms presented.     

Improving protocol capacity for UDP/TCP traffic with model-based frame scheduling in IEEE 802.11-operated WLANs

In this paper, we develop a model-based frame scheduling scheme, called MFS, to enhance the capacity of IEEE 802.11-operated wireless local area networks (WLANs) for both transmission control protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) traffic. In MFS each node estimates the current network status by keeping track of the number of collisions it encounters between its two consecutive successful frame transmissions, and computes accordingly the current network utilization. The result is then used to determine a scheduling delay to be introduced before a node attempts to transmit its pending frame. MFS does not require any change in IEEE 802.11, but instead lays a thin layer between the LL and medium access control (MAC) layers. In order to accurately calculate the current utilization in WLANs, we develop an analytical model that characterizes data transmission activities in IEEE 802.11-operated WLANs with/without the request to send/clear to send (RTS/CTS) mechanism, and validate the model with ns-2 simulation. All the control overhead incurred in the physical and MAC layers, as well as system parameters specified in IEEE 802.11, are figured in. We conduct a comprehensive simulation study to evaluate MFS in perspective of the number of collisions, achievable throughput, intertransmission delay, and fairness in the cases of TCP and UDP traffic. The simulation results indicate that the performance improvement with respect to the protocol capacity in a WLAN of up to 300 nodes is 1) as high as 20% with the RTS/CTS and 70% without the RTS/CTS in the case of UDP traffic and 2) as high as 10% with the RTS/CTS and 40% without the RTS/CTS in the case of TCP traffic. Moreover, the intertransmission delay in MFS is smaller and exhibits less variation than that in IEEE 802.11; the fairness among wireless nodes in MFS is better than, or equal to, that in IEEE 802.11.     

WLAN中基于OpenFlow的无缝切换机制设计与实现

在传统的WLAN网络中,因为用户使用的移动终端（Station,STA）具有移动性,STA会出现离开当前网络接入点（Access Point,AP）的覆盖范围进入另一AP覆盖范围的情况,此时STA需要在AP间进行切换.传统WLAN中这样的AP间切换会产生网络延迟突然增大、吞吐量损失、以及掉线等服务质量下降的问题.本文提出并实现了一种基于AP虚拟化和OpenFlow技术的解决方案,通过搭建基于OpenFlow的交换网络对STA的流量进行细粒度的控制从而完成STA在不同AP间的无缝切换.经过实际网络环境测试,本方案具有5ms左右的切换延时、在AP切换时只会造成1秒左右的瞬时吞吐量减少和16ms左右的网络延时.相较于其他方案,本方案由于不需要再次进行认证和重新路由,因而具有更好的无缝切换性能.     

Performance evaluation of packet data services over cellular voice networks

In this paper we develop a Markov chain modeling framework for throughput/delay analysis of data services over cellular voice networks, using the dynamic channel stealing method. Effective approximation techniques are also proposed and verified for simplification of modeling analysis. Our study identifies the average voice call holding time as the dominant factor to affect data delay performance. Especially in heavy load conditions, namely when the number of free voice channels becomes momentarily less, the data users will experience large network access delay in the range of several minutes or longer on average. The study also reveals that the data delay performance deteriorates as the number of voice channels increases at a fixed voice call blocking probability, due to increased voice trunking efficiency. We also examine the data performance improvement by using the priority data access scheme and speech silence detection technique.     

延迟容忍网络自适应差错控制方法

根据延迟容忍网络的时延较大、误码率较高等特点,在现有的传输控制层和MAC层差错控制的基础上改进,结合IEEE 802.11 DCF机制的特点,提出一种基于MAC层丢包率的自适应差错控制方案.该方案能有效改善延迟容忍网络的传输时延,满足对时延要求比较敏感的业务的要求.     

Network architecture and traffic transport for integrated wireless communications over enterprise networks

A novel network architecture based on the IEEE 802.6 metropolitan area networks (MAN) is proposed to integrate the wireless and wired segments of a regional enterprise network (REN) within a city. This architecture functions like a distributed switch for all types of services, reducing traffic congestion by sharing the high capacity link dynamically and facilitating signaling, mobility management, call processing and network management through its distributed functions, transport facilities and broadcasting capability. It also serves as a peripheral gathering network of REN traffic for transport over a wide area ATM/BISDN, enabling integration of an enterprise's regional networks into a global EN. Two major wireless applications, i.e., wireless PABX (WPABX) and wireless LAN (WLAN) are discussed to illustrate the advantages of this MAN‐based architecture. Although a REN is likely to support a wide range of different services, voice and data will continue to be the predominant traffic generated by WPABXs and WLANs, respectively, and are also representative of isochronous and asynchronous multimedia traffic carried by future wireless networks. We compare the traffic capacity of several voice transport alternatives under integrated (voice/data) network traffic with various data traffic loads, and study voice and data integration under three different integration schemes by simulations. Results indicate that the MAN‐based architecture is most effective employing queue arbitrated (QA) access for asynchronous traffic, pre‐arbitrated access for constant bit‐rate isochronous traffic, and the new reservation arbitrated (RA) access for variable bit‐rate isochronous traffic, under a scheme that permits full sharing between QA and RA traffic. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Improving performance in delay/disruption tolerant networks through passive relay points

In this paper, we study the case of a limited number of mobile nodes trying to communicate in a large geographic area, forming a delay/disruption tolerant network (DTN). In such networks the mobile nodes are disconnected for significantly long periods of time. Traditional routing protocols proposed for mobile ad hoc networks or mesh networks, which assume at least one path between each source and destination, are ineffective in DTNs. One approach to improve communication is through gossip based protocols because these protocols do not rely on a fixed path. Another approach is to control the movement of the mobile nodes and/or use special mobile nodes called ferry nodes. Others try to employ a fixed infrastructure including stationary relay points. One scheme in stationary relay point approach is to use base stations as relay points which need their own power supply. In this paper, we study a passive approach where mobile nodes deposit/retrieve messages to/ from known stationary locations in the geographic region. Messages are delivered from a source by being deposited at one or more locations that are later visited by the destination. A proposed implementation of our approach using read/writable passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, one per point location, is considered in this work. Passive RFID technology is desirable because it operates wirelessly and without the need for attached power. Our simulation results indicate that our approach can achieve competitive message delay and delivery rates. We also demonstrate several techniques for optimizing the stationary relay node placement, namely relay pruning, probability based relay distribution and a genetic algorithm; the genetic algorithm is shown to provide the best solutions to this problem.     

Pre-scan based fast handoff scheme for enterprise IEEE 802.11 networks

In IEEE 802.11 networks, many access points (APs) are required to cover a large area due to the limited coverage range of APs, and frequent handoffs may occur while a station (STA) is moving in an area covered by several APs. However, traditional handoff mechanisms employed at STAs introduce a few hundred milliseconds delay, which is far longer than what can be tolerated by some multimedia streams such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), it is a challenging issue for supporting seamless handoff service in IEEE 802.11 networks. In this paper, we propose a pre-scan based fast handoff scheme within an IEEE 802.11 enterprise wireless local area network (EWLAN) environment. The proposed scheme can help STA obtain the best alternative AP in advance after the pre-scan process, and when the handoff is actually triggered, STA can perform the authentication and reassociation process toward the alternative AP directly. Furthermore, we adopt Kalman filter to minimize the fluctuation of received signal strength (RSS), thus reducing the unnecessary pre-scan process and handoffs. We performed simulations to evaluate performance, and the simulation results show that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce the handoff delay.     

On storage dynamics of space delay/disruption tolerant network node

Delay/disruption tolerant network (DTN) plays a promising role in prospected information infrastructures for future space activities, such as Interplanetary Internet (IPN) or Solar System Internet (SSI). Over such long-haul and intermittent links, DTN technique makes scientific data return end-to-end reliable by the typical custody transfer and store-and-forward mechanism. Due to lack of enough space spacecrafts deployed for DTN, now and in the near decades, there will be some intermediary nodes which would carry a large proportion of network traffic as DTN routers. Consequently, the behaviors and capabilities of managing bundles in the intermediary nodes would have impacts on the data transport over space DTN. Focusing on the storage dynamics of bundles, in this paper, we propose an analytical framework based on two-dimension Markov chain to evaluate the behaviors of bundles delivery in DTN intermediate nodes. Accordingly, a delay model and a transmission success probability model for bundles delivery over space DTN are developed separately, both dependent closely on the sojourn time in node storages. The evaluation results indicate that: (1) Dividing the source files into bigger bundles for transmission causes a longer storage-occupancy time on intermediary nodes; (2) bundle sizes have more explicit impacts on the storage-occupancy time at a node than segment sizes do; and (3) the transmission success probability of a bundle is more dependent on a DTN bundle size than on a LTP segment size.     

A link contact duration-based routing protocol in delay-tolerant networks

Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) provide message delivery services to users via intermittently connected nodes. In DTNs, routing is one of the most challenging issues since end-to-end connectivity between nodes may not be available most of the time. Although many routing protocols for DTNs have been proposed, they do not achieve satisfactory performance, since they exploit only some of the network characteristics. In this paper, we present a new DTN routing protocol, called the Link Contact Duration-based Routing Protocol (LCD). Like existing protocols, LCD uses the disconnect duration of a link between two nodes to find the routing path with the shortest end-to-end delay. In addition, LCD uses the contact duration of a link and the number of buffered messages to deliver as many messages as possible in a short time. Our simulation results show that LCD has better performance than existing DTN routing protocols.     

Homing‐pigeon‐based messaging: multiple pigeon‐assisted delivery in delay‐tolerant networks

In this paper, we consider the applications of delay‐tolerant networks (DTNs), where the nodes in a network are located in separated areas, and in each separated area, there exists (at least) an anchor node that provides regional network coverage for the nearby nodes. The anchor nodes are responsible for collecting and distributing messages for the nodes in the vicinity. This work proposes to use a set of messengers (named pigeons) that move around the network to deliver messages among multiple anchor nodes. Each source node (anchor node or Internet access point) owns multiple dedicated pigeons, and each pigeon takes a round trip starting from its home (i.e., the source) through the destination anchor nodes and then returns home, disseminating the messages on its way. We named this as a homing‐pigeon‐based messaging (HoPM) scheme. The HoPM scheme is different from the prior schemes in that each messenger is completely dedicated to its home node for providing messaging service. We obtained the average message delay of HoPM scheme in DTN through theoretical analysis with three different pigeon scheduling schemes. The analytical model was validated by simulations. We also studied the effects of several key parameters on the system performance and compared the results with previous solutions. The results allowed us to better understand the impacts of different scheduling schemes on the system performance of HoPM and demonstrated that our proposed scheme outperforms the previous ones. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An enhanced TCP for upward vertical handoff in integrated WLAN and cellular networks

The integration of wireless local area networks (WLANs) and third generation (3G) cellular networks has been recently a subject of great interest, mainly aimed at augmenting cellular networks with high‐rate data services by WLANs in hotspots. The complementary characteristics of 3G cellular networks and 802.11 WLANs are expected to offer the best of both technologies. On the other hand, the drastically different characteristics of both networks could be a serious obstacle to providing seamless mobility in the integrated WLAN and cellular networks. In particular, mobile users suffer from a drastic decrease in data rate after a vertical handoff from a WLAN to a 3G cellular network. However, current TCP congestion control cannot adapt to the change in the data rate after the vertical handoff, resulting in significant throughput degradation. Thus, we propose a novel TCP scheme to enhance the throughput when a vertical handoff occurs from a WLAN to a cellular network. For the proposed scheme, the throughput performance is investigated via analytic modeling and simulation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quality assurance of voice over WLANs (VoWLANs) with differentiated services

Several technical issues make commercial and large voice over wireless local area network (VoWLAN) services difficult to provide. The most challenging issue when voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services are ran over IEEE 802.11-based WLANs is the bandwidth inefficiency due to the considerable overhead associated with WLAN packet transmission. In this work, we propose a session-based quality-of-service management architecture (SQoSMA) to overcome the low number of VoIP calls in IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs and the negative effect of new call addition when the WLAN reaches its capacity. The SQoSMA combines data and control planes to detect VoWLAN QoS degradations and performs either an adaptive audio codec switching or a call stopping to fix VoWLAN issues in a differentiated services manner. In addition, our solution deals with user sessions information, by considering user priority (from its agreement) to guarantee a certain level of its multimedia applications. Performance evaluation using a real test-bed shows that call codec change and call stopping techniques can easily assure high-priority calls with acceptable call blocking probability.     

WLAN throughput improvement via distributed queuing MAC

This paper analyzes the performance of a MAC scheme for wireless local area networks (WLANs) that makes use of distributed queues to improve radio channel utilization. Analytical values for the maximum throughput performance are derived as a function of the system parameters. The obtained results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the legacy 802.11 MAC protocol in terms of maximum stable throughput. This benefit is obtained from eliminating back-off periods and collisions in data packet transmissions while minimizing the needed control overhead. The proposal also makes performance to be independent of the number of nodes transmitting in the system and provides stability for high load conditions.