| The research presented in this dissertation deals with location management in wireless networks. Wireless networks allow a carrier to provide telecommunication services without the need for a wire-based access network. The access network is one of the most expensive portions of a network and wireless eliminates this expense. One of the major benefits of wireless is the ability for a subscriber to move from one location to another. A subscriber is not confined to the limits of a single serving area. At the same time, one of the major issues with wireless networks is the ability of the network to manage each mobile subscriber as they move from one serving area to another locally or globally.; Current location management strategies provide the functions necessary to manage mobile subscribers. However, these strategies are not efficient, especially in cases of global level location management. Many strategies and fixes have been proposed, but none provides a seamless and efficient solution for location management. The key to efficient location management is to minimize the burden on the wireless network.; This dissertation proposes a seamless and efficient strategy that addresses various issues at the four levels of location management, namely local, area, national, and global. Our approach was to reduce the location management burden on the wireless network by localizing certain network functions. To accomplish this, protocols and architectures were developed for each level of location management by introducing new location databases and concepts. These new databases and concepts will generate additional location management functions. However, it is expected that the advantages of the proposed strategy will offset the additional location management functions placed on the wireless network. To validate the proposed strategy, computer simulations were performed to determine location management performance at the local, area, national and global levels for a single mobile subscriber. From the simulation results, it is seen that localizing of network functions reduces the location management burden on a wireless network, thus reducing query cost and call delivery delay. |
