IP roaming over cellular digital video broadcast networks

Abstract

Rapid deployments of multi-national forces involve the quick formation of wide area networks over a deployed IP backbone infrastructure. Networks provided by each nation in the coalition shall be able to dock wirelessly into the terrestrial IP network after they deploy in theatre, and ultimately roam across a cellular access network for executing their mission. In order to enable the provision of wideband data services to nomadic networks, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Digital Video Broadcast technology (DVB) is proposed to implement a wideband broadcast cellular infrastructure. Commercial mobile routing protocols, adapted to operate over unidirectional (broadcast) channels, build the core technology for supporting IP roaming and broadband data delivery in these scenarios. Various narrowband media allow the roving networks to transmit back into the fixed network, under a highly bandwidth-asymmetric, split-path network configuration.