An Architecture For A Campus-Scale Wireless Mobile Internet

This paper proposes a network architecture to support mobile communication in a large university campus. The design allows each mobile host to maintain transport connectivity while roaming freely in the campus. Called Crosspoint, the design combines wireless local-area network (LAN) technology with high-speed Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching technology. The combination provides a wireless communication system with sufficient aggregate bandwidth to handle massive, synchronized movements of mobile hosts. Furthermore, the design requires no modification to conventional network software on mobile hosts, stationary hosts, or existing IP routers. We have implemented a prototype of the Crosspoint design. This paper also describes the basic protocols used in the implementation.