The University of British Columbia

The next generation personal communications network (PCN) will likely consist of an ATM-based B-ISDN backbone interconnecting wireless mobile networks. Support of user terminal mobility, particularly the capability for fast and seamless handoffs, over the B-ISDN is an expected requirement that is not currently met. We propose extensions to the B-ISDN user transport and signaling network architectures and signaling protocols to meet these requirements. The proposed extensions optimizes the handoff delay over the B-ISDN while minimizing the resources allocation, chances of handoff failure, and the call processing load in the intelligent network (IN). The network architecture extensions are backward compatible to current B-ISDN standards and implementations