The interoperability of Wi-Fi hotspots and packet cellular networks and the impact of user behaviour

The rapid emergence of Wi-Fi hotspots (access points), that are aimed at providing broadband wireless access to users in and around places of commercial interest, presents the unique problem of integrating existing cellular networks with these. We present a novel architecture that explores the interoperability issues between Wi-Fi hotspots and packet cellular networks. In the presence of multiple wireless networks with different access costs, different areas of coverage and bandwidth, the user´s choice to select a particular network can significantly impact user benefits and resource usage. We identify three major user profiles - bandwidth conscious, cost conscious and glitch conscious - and study their impact on resource utilization. Contrary to intuition, simulation experiments have shown that bandwidth conscious users may get fewer bandwidth resources compared to glitch conscious users at high mobility. Similarly, it was found that bandwidth conscious users achieve high packet delivery ratios, even while incurring lower costs than cost conscious users, in certain situations. Although increasing the number of access points (APs) leads to higher packet delivery ratios, system performance degrades when the number of APs becomes very large.