On Access Selection Techniques in Always Best Connected Networks

Always Best Connected (ABC) networks are expected to allow users to get connected to services using the access technology that is most suitable in terms of some user configured set of criteria. In this paper we focus on the case when this set is based on the user (application) defined QoS and develop algorithms that attempt to maximize the overall system capacity. In order to do this, we first identify two key requirements in the ABC environment. First, the necessary input parameters need to be made available for the access selection algorithm. These include status information about the candidate access networks and information on the user desired QoS. Second, in order to properly configure QoS in the selected access network, parameters need to be provided to the access QoS manager entities. Both requirements are nontrivial because user terminals and applications may be completely access technology unaware and remote (being several hops away) from the access network. We assume an end-to-end QoS and status information distribution mechanism proposed in previous work and study two selection algorithms that helps users and access providers being ”best connected” in terms of QoS and capacity. 1