A Simple Paradigm for Supporting the New Generation of Internet Based on WLAN over OBS

Wireless local area network (WLAN) and 3G cellular systems can provide high-speed wireless connections that can not be offered by earlier cellular technologies. WLANs are more suitable to hotspots coverage, that is, broadband wireless access with limited mobility. In future, various complementary radio access networks (RANs) will be used in combination with 4G RANs to provide full coverage services. WLAN is expected to be one of these complementary RANs used to achieve broadband wireless service. To enhance the performance of the WLAN, we introduce, for the first time, a paradigm for a system to support the new generation of the Internet based on using optical burst switching (OBS) network as the backbone. This system is aimed to combine advantages of the WLANs and OBS to achieve seamless mobile Internet services by narrowing the gap between the wireless and the Internet worlds. The internetworking between the WLAN and the OBS with using the two DCF mechanisms and different packet sizes is validated through simulations.