Access Discovery in Always Best Connected Networks

It is widely recognized that fourth generation mobile communication systems will be built upon all-IP architectures with various radio access networks. The existence of multiple access networks provides users possibilities to connect to the access network which best suits their application needs at any given time and location. This concept is often called by "always best connected". Access discovery is the process not only to find available access networks or access devices for ABC terminals, but also to get the available resource information for applications. However, current access discovery schemes do not meet the requirements of access discovery in ABC networks. In this study, we propose two access discovery schemes to solve the problem mentioned above. One is terminal-based access discovery. The other is network-based access discovery. Through analysis and simulation, network-based access discovery brings user equipments a great improvement on power consumption comparing with terminal-based access discovery.