A wireless service for the IEEE 802.6 metropolitan area network

The authors explore how to use specific features in the IEEE 802.6 standard to allow the metropolitan area network to function as a cellular packet switch. They compare the needs of wireless voice, data, and signaling with existing 802.6 capabilities and find that several new features are required. The proposed voice service allows voice packets from the radio link to be carried in a single 802.6 slot of 53 bytes. This is accomplished by eliminating portions of the 802.6 adaptation layer which are unneeded for voice. Signaling traffic is accommodated by use of the virtual circuit identifier and the message identification fields to provide virtual circuits, permanent virtual circuits, and point-to-multipoint virtual circuits. Low bit rate data can be supported using the existing 802.6 connection-oriented service with retransmission at the segmentation and reassembly sublayer