Quality-of-service guarantee and traffic characterization in multimedia wireless networks

In the next generation, high-speed wireless networks, it is important to provide quality-of-service (QOS) guarantees as they are expected to support multimedia applications. Furthermore, network traffic dynamics may impact the performance of QOS guarantee mechanisms; therefore, its investigation is also important.; This work proposes an admission control scheme based on adaptive bandwidth reservation to provide QOS guarantees for multimedia traffic carried in high-speed wireless networks. Furthermore, recent studies on network traffic have demonstrated the presence of long-range dependence in network traffic. These studies have shown that congestion management and QOS guarantee are closely affected by the presence and degree of long-range dependence in network traffic. Therefore, this work also empirically studies the long-range dependence properties in IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN traffic.; The proposed admission control scheme allocates bandwidth to a connection in the cell where the connection request originates and reserves bandwidth in all neighboring cells. When a user moves to a new cell and a hand-off occurs, bandwidth is allocated in the new cell; bandwidth is reserved in the new cell's neighboring cells; and reserved bandwidth in more distant cells is released. The amount of bandwidth to reserve is dynamically adjusted, reflecting the current network conditions. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated through simulations showing that the proposed scheme provides a high level of QOS guarantee.; In this work, IEEE 802.11b wireless LANs traffic traces are statistically analyzed, with emphasis on testing for the presence and degree of long-range dependence. Different wireless network configurations are used to collect network traffic traces. Extensive statistical analysis is then applied on the collected traffic traces to determine the presence and degree of long-range dependence. Hurst (H) parameter is used to measure the degree of long-range temporal dependence, showing the presence of long-range dependence in wireless LANs.; An important contribution of this work is the novel admission control scheme guaranteeing QOS for wireless networks. Furthermore, this novel scheme has been extensively studied through simulation. Another important contribution is the empirical study of wireless network traffic that has not been previously investigated. This investigation uses a comprehensive statistical analysis of the collected data. Overall results are critical for improving quality-of-service guarantees in wireless networks.