Conceptual Architecture for QoS in Heterogeneous Networks

The advent of mobile-centric and wireless devices and the need to preserve and apply the ubiquitous Internet technology, which was originally conceived when mobility was not an issue, has posited the need to create augmented and modified models of communication that attempt to preserve the semantic integrity and transparency independent of the underlying communication infrastructure. The applications developed for mobile and wireless products that include multimedia attributes most certainly requires a provision of Quality of Service (QoS). Some of the problems in a heterogeneous wireless networks that either directly or indirectly influence the QoS are well known. These include but are not limited to reliable transport services, where reliability due to the infrastructure might prove to be liability rather then an asset, then asymmetrical nature of the traffic, and finally the problem of handoffs. In the paper, which is a report on an ongoing research, we propose an architecture that addresses the problems of the Internet technology deployment in wireless heterogeneous networks through an interesting conceptual framework. The basic architectural components of this model, once sufficiently explored and well defined, should be able to provide a desirable QoS in some aspects for the 4G networking.