IP QoS In Broadband Wireless Networks

One of the key components in allowing QoS guarantees to be implemented in
the wireless environment is the Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol. MAC
protocols define how the air interface in a wireless environment is shared
among multiple users, thus having a significant impact on user performance,
system capacity and remote terminal complexity. The aim of this project is
to build a QoS architecture for broadband wireless networks (represented by
the MAC layer) that can be seamlessly integrated with the QoS architectures
proposed for the wired networks (e.g., the Internet Diffserv and Intserv
architectures). The schemes to be developed will mainly focus on the QoS
aspects related to the types of traffic and services currently being offered
over the Internet (e.g., voice, Web access, email and file download).

The MAC protocol under consideration is Data Over Cable Services Interface
Specification (DOCSIS), which is the de facto standard for delivering
broadband services over Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) networks, and is also the
basis for the IEEE 802.16 standard developed for Broadband Wireless Access
(BWA) systems.

We are using OPNET's DOCSIS model suit to simulate and test our proposed
QoS architecture. This includes implementing a new scheduling architecture for
DOCSIS that can support a wide range of bandwidth and delay QoS guarantees.