Performance simulation of UMTS services within Monet

RACE II Project Monet (mobile networks) has been tasked with the investigation of the networking aspects of a third generation mobile system called the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). Part of the task of the Monet project is to determine the impact on the core network infrastructure that will arise due to the need to support the proposed UMTS services. In order to achieve this aim the project has developed a simulation platform which is configurable such that specific evaluation studies can be rapidly developed and run. The major feature of the simulation work is to determine the QoS aspects of the provided UMTS services that must facilitate call handling, mobility management and the potential support of UPT users. This is primarily in terms of observed delay times as perceived by the UMTS (or UPT) user. In order to achieve specific QoS figures, the UMTS core network must be capable of supporting determined signalling rates across the network links and process measured signalling messages measured at the core network nodes