Call control signaling for personal communications over interconnected metropolitan area networks

A distributed personal communication network (PCN) architecture employing interconnected IEEE 802.6 metropolitan area networks (MAN's) has been proposed as a means of handling the anticipated heavy traffic and call processing load of future PCN's employing microcellular wireless access. It employs pre-arbitrated (PA) isochronous access with silence detection for voice transport, and high priority queue-arbitrated (QA) packet access for signaling. Efficient and reliable signaling procedures are required for call control. Particularly for call setups and handoffs. These procedures are presented and analyzed in this paper, along with the supporting system architecture. Simulation results show that the network capacity is constrained by the call setup delay performance. Alternative signaling system architectures, involving different placements of call control network elements, are evaluated. The overlap inter-MAN call setup procedure is proposed to reduce delays. Different call handoff procedures are formulated according to the type of handoff and the resulting change in call connectivity. Most handoffs are intra-MAN, requiring simple procedures with short delays.<>