This research is motivated by the recent developments in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to support seamless integration of moving networks deployed in vehicles to the global Internet. The effort, known as Network Mobility (NEMO), paves the way to support high-speed Internet access in mass transit systems, e.g. trains; buses; ferries; and planes; through the use of on-board mobile routers embedded in the vehicle. One of the critical research challenges of this vision is to achieve high-speed and reliable back-haul connectivity between the mobile router and the rest of the Internet. The problem is particularly challenging due to the fact that a mobile router must rely on wireless links with limited bandwidth and unpredictable quality variations as the vehicle moves around. In this thesis, the multi-homing concept is applied to approach the problem. With multi-homing, mobile router has more than one connection to the Internet. This is achieved by connecting the mobile router to a diverse array of wireless access technologies (e.g., GPRS, CDMA, 802.11, and 802.16) and/or a multiplicity of wireless service providers. While the aggregation helps addressing the bandwidth problem, quality variation problem can be mitigated by employing advanced traffic engineering techniques that dynamically control inbound and outbound traffic over multiple connections. More specifically, the thesis investigates traffic engineering solutions for mobile networks that can effectively address the performance objectives, e.g. maximizing profit for mobile network operator; guaranteeing quality of service for the users; and maintaining fair access to the back-haul bandwidth. Traffic engineering solutions with three different levels of control have been investigated. First, it is shown, using detailed computer simulation of popular applications and networking protocols(e.g., File Transfer Protocol and Transmission Control Protocol), that packet-level traffic engineering which makes decisions of which Internet connection to use for each and every packet, leads to poor system throughput. The main problem with packet-based traffic engineering stems from the fact that in mobile environment where link bandwidths and delay can vary significantly, packets using different connections may experience different delays causing unexpected arrivals at destinations. Second, a maximum utility flow-level traffic engineering has been proposed that aims to maximize a utility function that accounts for bandwidth utilization on the one hand, and fairness on the other. The proposed solution is compared against previously proposed flow-level traffic engineering schemes and shown to have better performance in terms of throughput and fairness. The third traffic engineering proposal addresses the issue of maximizing operator?s profit when different Internet connections have different charging rates, and guaranteeing per user bandwidth through admission control. Finally, a new signaling protocol is designed to allow the mobile router to control its inbound traffic.
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