Mobility and call control in an ATM environment

A mobile network comprising:

• mobile stations;
• base stations;
• at least one controlling public land mobile network (PLMN) network element responsible for call control and mobility management;
• and
• an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) transmission network including at least one ATM switch, the base stations and a controlling mobile network element connected to the ATM switch by a user-network-interface (UNI);
• and
• a first permanent ATM virtual channel provided between the controlling mobile network element and each base station for transferring call control and mobility management signalling transparently therebetween through an ATM transmission network;
• the controlling mobile network element configured to remotely control the ATM switch to switch ATM virtual channels dynamically between the base stations and another point in the ATM transmission network.

A wireless asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network comprising:

• mobile stations;
• base stations;
• at least one ATM switch, the base stations connected to the ATM switch by a user-network-interface (UNI),
• at least one controlling mobile network element connected to the ATM switch by the UNI to carry out a call control and mobility management;
• a first permanent ATM virtual channel provided between the mobile network element and each base station for transferring call control and mobility management signalling transparently therebetween through the ATM network;
• the mobile network element configured to remotely control the ATM switch to switch the ATM virtual channels dynamically between the base stations and another point in the ATM network, wherein the ATM switch includes means for performing a standard UNI signalling procedure between the ATM switch, the base station and another point in the ATM network in response to the remote control of the mobile network element, wherein the UNI signalling procedure peformed being one of setting up, releasing and reswitching a logical virtual channel for a call.

A method for mobility management and call control in a wireless asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network including mobile stations, base stations and at least one ATM switch, the base stations being connected to the ATM switch by a user-network-interface (UNI), the method comprising:

• transferring signalling related to the mobility management and the call control transparently between the base stations and a controlling mobile network element through the ATM network on permanent logical virtual channels;
• setting up, in the ATM switch, call-specific logical virtual channels between the base stations and other parties by using UNI signalling;
• and
• remotely controlling the ATM switch from the mobile network element.

A method for mobility management and call control in a mobile network comprising mobile stations, base stations, at least one controlling mobile network element that is responsible for call control and mobility management, and an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) transmission network comprising at least one ATM switch, the base stations and said controlling mobile network element being connected to the ATM switch by a user-network-interface (UNI), the method comprising:

• performing operations related to call control and mobility management in a separate controlling mobile network element, the mobile network element being connected to the ATM switch by a UNI;
• transferring signalling related to mobility management and call control transparently between the base stations and the mobile network element through an ATM network on permanent logical virtual channels;
• setting up, in the ATM switch, call-specific logical virtual channels between the base stations and other parties by using UNI signalling;
• and
• remotely controlling the ATM switch from the mobile network element.