User-domain Multiservice Architecture for Wired and Wireless IP Networks Liang Cheng and Ivan Marsic Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 94 Brett Rd., Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA {chengl,marsic}@caip.rutgers.edu Abstract : In the context of wired and wireless IP networks, this paper illustrates a user-domain multiservice architecture and proposes layered schemes for its provision of quality of service. Based on the proposed multiservice architecture, a testbed is constructed and implemented. Issues of user-domain multiservice support, such as integrated service, differentiated service, real-time service, data-compression service, wireless-awareness service, and network-awareness service, are addressed and experimentalized. The paper describes several case studies conducted in the testbed such as RSVP efficiency, end-to- end combination of differentiated and integrated services, video-on-demand deploying wireless awareness services, and proactive and reactive applications using network awareness service. Keywords : User-domain multiservice, quality of service (QoS), testbed, wireless communication, awareness service, proactive and reactive applications 1. Introduction Recently there is a great number of researches on the multiservice architecture and its provision of quality of service (QoS). While most of them conducted studies from the network service providers’ point of view, this paper illustrates a user-domain multiservice architecture and proposes layered schemes for QoS provision. QoS in the networking context is commonly referred as the capability to differentiate between service types so that one or more classes of traffic can be treated differently than others [1]. Traditionally, the Internet only provides best-effort service with QoS characteristics dependent on instantaneous load of networks. In contrast, multiservice networks with dynamically manageable QoS allow applications to request service quality according to their needs, and may provide different quality of service to different applications. In this paper quality of service can be understood as the nature of services provided for transmitting packets in multiservice IP networks, which can be described by QoS parameters such as available bandwidth, delay and packet loss. Moreover, this paper addresses the multiservice architecture in the context of both wired and wireless IP networks considering ubiquitous computing in the next generation networks. Based on the proposed multiservice architecture, a testbed is constructed and implemented. Issues of user-domain multiservice support, such as integrated service, differentiated service, real-time service, data-compression service, wireless-awareness service, and network-awareness service, are experimentalized. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a user-domain multiservice architecture for wired and wireless IP networks. Then details of the testbed based on this architecture are described in Section 3. Some experimental results are presented in Section 4. Section 5 concludes this paper. 2. User-domain Multiservice Architecture for Wired and Wireless IP Networks QoS support in multiservice networks can be viewed as a layer-by-layer issue since it can be projected to different layers as different QoS related problems. According to the separation principle [8], which states that media transfer, control and management are functionally distinct architecture activities, a user-domain multiservice architecture is presented for the management and control of QoS parameters in both wired and wireless IP networks. It is depicted from a layered viewpoint in Figure 1. The QoS agent bridges the data services, such as data transport service, and QoS control services, such as wireless awareness service (WAS). Figure 1. User-domain multiservice architecture (Mobile) Internet Protocol Transport service: UDP Network service: Int/Diff Serv Real-time service: RTP Session Management Service Awareness Service: WAS Presentation Service: H.263 QoS Agent Network Applications Copyright 2000 IEEE. Published in the Proceedings of the 1st IEEE European Conference on Universal Multiservice Networks (ECUMN'2000), pp. 272-282, Colmar, France, October 2-4 2000.