A new distributed location management algorithm for broadband personal communication networks

Abstract

We propose an efficient location management algorithm for broadband personal communication networks (PCN's) which reduces the complexity of network signaling and delay due to database access when locating a portable station (PS). Previous works on updating and search algorithms for personal communications have concentrated on the access delay due to signaling network traffic only. But, with the advances in fiber optic technology, it will be possible to provide the capacity of signaling network on the order of several Mbps in broadband PCN's. Thus it may be more important to simplify the signaling procedure and reduce the number of database accesses for mobility management at the cost of some increase of signaling traffic. In the proposed algorithm, we first remove all visitor location registers (VLR's) in order to achieve the simplicity of signaling procedure. Thus, only home databases for mobility management are distributed in a global network, and each database keeps only the current locations of PS's initially registered in its management area. It can solve the problem of requiring an impractically large database in a centralized database structure by distributing home location registers (HLR's) while maintaining the simplicity of mobility management and reducing database loads. This algorithm has a simple signaling procedure, and reduces database operations when compared to hierarchical algorithms as network switching hierarchy increases or relocation and calling rate increase.