NGL03-4: An Interoperability Mechanism for Seamless Interworking between WLAN and UMTS-HSDPA Networks

Future wireless communication systems are expected to provide seamless inter-working between existing and 3G radio networks providing the user with a wide variety of services, while maintaining a large area of coverage and minimum user QoS requirements. In this paper, a new mechanism that implements interoperability between HSDPA and WLAN systems is proposed. The proposed interoperability mechanism is activated via the optimization of a suitably defined cost function, which takes into account all the appropriate system level parameters that trigger the interoperability process. The performance evaluation of the proposed scheme is assessed by means of a software - based simulation platform. A number of simulations have been carried out in order to demonstrate the performance enhancements achieved by the proposed mechanism in terms of user throughput, handovers statistics, and system throughput.