Resource Reservation for Self-Similar Data Traffic in Cellular/WLAN Integrated Mobile Hotspots

As two most popular wireless networks, the third generation (3G) cellular networks and wireless local area networks (WLANs) can be integrated to enhance service provisioning. However, most of the previous studies on cellular/WLAN interworking focus on WLANs in a static indoor environment such as offices, hotels, and cafes. Actually, the two heterogeneous technologies can be integrated to support mobile hotspots, which are usually in and around a moving vehicle, such as a bus, a railway train, and even a flight cabin. Different from traditional single-hop wireless networks, the mobile hotspot can adopt a two-hop relay for wireless access. In this paper, we analyze the delay performance for such a cellular/WLAN integrated mobile hotspot. In particular, we take into account the heavy-tailedness of data file size and self-similarity of aggregate traffic. Based on the analysis, we can determine the cellular channel bandwidth to be reserved for aggregate handoff traffic of the mobile hotspot.