In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in deployment and usage of realtime network applications, such as Voice-over-IP, video calls/video conferencing, live net- work seminars, and networked gaming. The continued increase in the popularity of realtime applications requires a more intense focus on the provision of strict guarantees for Quality of Service (QoS) parameters such as delay, jitter and packet loss in access networks. At the same time, wireless networking technologies have become increasingly popular with a wide array of devices such as laptop computers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and cellular phones being sold with built-in WiFi and WiMAX interfaces. For realtime applications to be popular over wireless networks, simple, robust and e ective QoS mechanisms suited for a variety of heterogeneous wireless networks must be devised. Implementing the same QoS mechanisms across multiple neighbouring networks aids seamless handover by ensuring that a flow will be treated in the same way, both before and after handover.

"This book offers cutting edge approaches for the provision of quality of service in wireless local area networks"--Provided by publisher.

This book, one of the first of its kind, presents mechanisms, protocols, and system architectures needed to attain end-to-end Quality of Service over heterogeneous wired and wireless networks in the Internet.

Heterogeneous wireless networking, which is sometimes referred to as the fourth-generation (4G) wireless, is a new frontier in the future wireless communications technology and there has been a growing interest on this topic among researchers and engineers in both academia and industry. This book will include a set of research and survey articles featuring the recent advances in theory and applications of heterogeneous wireless networking technology for the next generation (e.g., fourth generation) wireless communications systems. With the rapid growth in the number of wireless applications, services and devices, using a single wireless technology such as a second generation (2G) and third generation (3G) wireless system would not be efficient to deliver high speed data rate and quality-of-service (QoS) support to mobile users in a seamless way. Fourth generation (4G) wireless systems are devised with the vision of heterogeneity in which a mobile user/device will be able to connect to multiple wireless networks (e.g., WLAN, cellular, WMAN) simultaneously. This book intends to provide a unified view on the state-of-the-art of protocols and architectures for heterogeneous wireless networking. The contributed articles will cover both the theoretical concepts and system-level implementation issues related to design, analysis, and optimization of architectures and protocols for heterogeneous wireless access networks.

With the explosive increase in the number of mobile devices and applications, it is anticipated that wireless traffic will increase exponentially in the coming years. Moreover, future wireless networks all carry a wide variety of flows, such as video streaming, online gaming, and VoIP, which have various quality of service (QoS) requirements. Therefore, a new mechanism that can provide satisfactory performance to the complete variety of all kinds of flows, in a coherent and unified framework, is needed. In this book, we introduce a framework for real-time wireless networks. This consists of a model that jointly addresses several practical concerns for real-time wireless networks, including per-packet delay bounds, throughput requirements, and heterogeneity of wireless channels. We detail how this framework can be employed to address a wide range of problems, including admission control, packet scheduling, and utility maximization. Table of Contents: Preface / Introduction / A Study of the Base Case / Admission Control / Scheduling Policies / Utility Maximization without Rate Adaptation / Utility Maximization with Rate Adaptation / Systems with Both Real-Time Flows and Non-Real-Time Flows / Broadcasting and Network Coding / Bibliography / Authors' Biographies

This book provides an in-depth discussion on how to efficiently manage resources of heterogeneous wireless networks and how to design resource allocation algorithms to suit real world conditions. Efficiently managing resources of the networks is more crucial now, than ever before, to meet users’ rapidly increasing demand for higher data rates, better quality-of-service (QoS) and seamless coverage. Some of the techniques that can be incorporated within heterogeneous wireless networks to achieve this objective are interworking of the networks, user multi-homing and device-to-device (D2D) communication. Designing resource allocation algorithms to suit real world conditions is also important, as the algorithms should be deployable and perform well in real networks. For example, two of the conditions considered in this book are resource allocation intervals of different networks are different and small cell base stations have limited computational capacity. To address the first condition, resource allocation algorithms for interworking systems are designed to allocate resources of different networks at different time-scales. To address the second condition, resource allocation algorithms are designed to be able to run at cloud computing servers. More of such conditions, algorithms designed to suit these conditions, modeling techniques for various networks and performance analysis of the algorithms are discussed in the book. This book concludes with a discussion on the future research directions on the related fields of study. Advanced-level students focused on communication and networking will use this book as a study guide. Researchers and experts in the fields of networking, converged networks, small-cell networks, resource management, and interference management, as well as consultants working in network planning and optimization and managers, executives and network architects working in the networking industry will also find this book useful as a reference.

QoS (Quality of Service) and Network Management are old topics. However, the fusion of IP style multimedia and wireless networks (3G) means that network managers who might previously have dealt with one or the other, must now manage and provide service guarantees for the both. This is where Managing Service Level Quality across Wireless and Fixed Networks steps in. It begins by examining the mechanisms that already existed in fixed IP data networks prior to the introduction of probe and agent technology. A look at these later developments is then supplemented with a real-world scenario of how real time application performance monitoring can not only provide service level management but can also aid in root cause analysis. This same model is then applied to a wireless environment examining which elements are required to be able to deliver multimedia services across 2nd and 3rd generation mobile networks, detailing the components of data networking that will assist in guaranteeing service level performance and the constraints placed on those guarantees when passing services over an air interface to a wireless-enabled device. It asks a simple question: will multimedia applications and the guaranteed levels of service required by them work when traversing from fixed to wireless networks? It tracks QoS components and mechanisms of both environments and looks at what will provide the glue in this brave new converged world and also provides empirical data to back up the conclusions drawn. First book available which applies QoS techniques and technologies to wireless/mobile networks 3G/UMTS Deals with the search for the real time information that constitutes the "customer experience" in terms of application performance so that service levels can be verified against measurable and relevant data in a true end-to-end manner across both fixed and wireless networks Presents probe and agent technology Features a real-world scenario of how real time application performance monitoring can not only provide service level management but can also aid in root cause analysis - this will be of particular interest to practitioner Analyses which elements are required in order to deliver multimedia services across 2nd and 3rd generation mobile networks Details the components of data networking that will assist in guaranteeing service level performance Essential reading for Wireless and IP data network professionals/practitioners, network managers and architects, technical consultants, quality assessment engineers, infrastructure vendors, application developers, portal designers, wireline operators, lecturers, postgraduates, senior undergraduate students and industry trainees.

The connected world paradigm effectuated through the proliferation of mobile devices, Internet of Things (IoT), and the metaverse will offer novel services in the coming years that need anytime, anywhere, high-speed access. The success of this paradigm will highly depend on the ability of the devices to always obtain the optimal network connectivity for an application and on the seamless mobility of the devices. This book will discuss 6G concepts and architectures to support next-generation applications such as IoT, multiband devices, and high-speed mobile applications. IoT applications put forth significant challenges on the network in terms of spectrum utilization, latency, energy efficiency, large number of users, and supporting different application characteristics in terms of reliability, data rate, and latency.While the 5G network developmentwas motivated by the need for larger bandwidth and higher quality of service (QoS), 6G considerations are supporting many users with a wide application requirement, lowering network operating cost, and enhanced network flexibility. Network generations beyond 5G are expected to accommodate massive number of devices with the proliferation of connected devices concept in connected cars, industrial automation, medical devices, and consumer devices. This book will address the fundamental design consideration for 6G networks and beyond. There are many technical challenges that need to be explored in the next generation of networks, such as increased spectrum utilization, lower latency, higher data rates, accommodating more users, heterogeneous wireless connectivity, distributed algorithms, and device-centric connectivity due to diversified mobile environments and IoT application characteristics. Since 6G is a multidisciplinary topic, this book will primarily focus on aspects of device characteristics, wireless heterogeneity, traffic engineering, device-centric connectivity, and smartness of application.