Quality of service analysis of a wireless ATM network access point

Providing guaranteed quality of service (QoS) in wireless asynchronous transfer mode (WATM) networks is especially challenging due to the characteristically poor quality of the transmission media. The provision and prediction of QoS, which is necessary in order to satisfy the requirements of the interconnected fixed ATM network, and the many services it must support, is directly influenced by the design of the lower protocol layers such as the ATM and MAC layers. Identification of the functional requirements of these layers for supporting QoS are described and more specifically, the QoS degradation due to buffering delays. However the dynamically changing and multi-service class nature of WATM traffic also has a major effect upon the QoS. A novel modelling approach is presented whereby a call level-cell level model allows us to study the performance of different buffering techniques in the WATM access points (APs).