Maintaining Quality of Service on Integrating Mobile Ad hoc Networks with 4G Cellular Networks

The 4th Generation wireless networks are expected to become the access network technology of preference and be fully connected to the Global IP core network. Meanwhile, Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) are typically formed on a temporary basis, to serve some urgent communication needs or extend communications in hot spots that are beyond the transmission range of cellular infrastructures. MANETs can offer Internet connectivity by integrating with cellular networks. 4G cellular networks will be capable of supporting multimedia applications with certain end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Thus, maintaining QoS for end users in MANETs affiliated to cellular networks is unavoidable, should an integrated QoS supporting solution is desired. In this paper, we investigate current technologies, specifically, the use of the MPLS protocol, which are potentially able to fulfill this task. MPLS technology has been extended to wireless domains to handle user mobility and support of QoS. The Micro Mobility MPLS (MM-MPLS) protocol, which performs the best out of all MPLS extensions for wireless networks [1, 2], is described in detail. In order to ensure seamless integration of MANETs and cellular networks, new design challenges have to be successfully overcome. We investigate the extendibility of the MM-MPLS protocol to MANETs, which will allow seamless QoS support. We also propose a new extension of MM-MPLS on MANETs and its applicability is conveyed through analysis and simulations.