A novel architecture for mobility enabled video conferencing in next generation wireless networks.

摘要

The Heterogeneous nature of next generation networks requires architecture and technologies that have an intrinsic support for diversity. The plethora of existing wireless access technologies will soon be connected to Internet in the wave of "Internet of Things". We have learnt from many endeavors that no single technology exists that is ubiquitous and connects everything. In Cellular service, aside from the geographic coverage limitation, the major deficiency is lack of complete coverage inside buildings (offices, healthcare facilities, malls, and the like). Once we are inside many public buildings, cellular coverage is blocked by RF opaque walls, but may have strong Wi-Fi connectivity. If our mobility solution depends on cellular services, that mobility functionality may be lost once we go inside. Providing seamless roaming and mobility wherever we go without intervention is not an added functionality but should be an in-built feature. Though many multi-mode mobile devices and technologies with video capabilities exist for a more than a decade (with the recent release of "FaceTime" calling on Wi-Fi for popular iPhone), user needs a technology that enables seamless mobility not only v in Wi-Fi or GSM but across heterogeneous networks and Internet. We propose a novel architecture named as "Call Control Network Architecture (CCNA)" to enable seamless mobility in audio/video conferencing and show how CCNA achieves seamless mobility at two levels, first at core of the Internet by using a newly added network elements called "Call Control Entity (CCE)" (CCE uses existing stateful/stateless sip proxies with newly added support for including security, mobility management and call distribution mechanisms) and second at the edge of the Internet by using existing fixed-mobile-convergence/vertical handoff techniques between heterogeneous networks. Our approach is inspired by key architectural evolution techniques proposed for next generation networks in telecommunications such as SIP, IP, MPLS, FMC, VoIP, etc. and key architectural evolution techniques proposed for next generation Internet such as TRIAD, SFS, DONA, HIP, etc. We setup test bed based to implement seamless mobility and measure performance characteristics (such as delay, jitter, handoff time, packet loss) for the new architecture.