An Architecture and Methodology for Mobile-Executed Handoff in Cellular ATM Networks

An architecture is presented for a high-speed cellular radio access network based on ATM transport technology. Central to this approach is a new concept known as the virtual connection tree which avoids the need to involve the network call processor for every cell handoff attempt. Such an approach can readily support a very high rate of handoffs, thereby enabling use of physically small radio cells to provide very high system capacity, but may occasionally cause the volume of traffic to be handled by one cell site to exceed that cell site's capacity. A simple analytical Methodology is developed which can be used for admission control, the purpose of which is to limit the number of in-progress calls such that two new quality of service metrics (overload probability and average time in overload) can be kept suitably low. Finally, a general framework is presented for overall system organization and signaling. © 1994 IEEE