AN OVERVIEW OF UMTS AND WIMAX NETWORKS INTEGRATION

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the network integration of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication
System) with WiMAX (Wordwide Interoperability of Microwave Access). A few proposed interworking solutions
and seamless integration of both networks are explained. The best architecture and key procedures that will enable
the integration both networks and handover mechanism for the seamless mobility are presented. Considering the
trend of the current network evolution, which is the convergence between the telecommunications and broadcast
worlds, an integration of mobile WiMAX with present 2G, 2.5G or 3G accesses into a homogeneous architecture
goes a long way to achieve the reality of mobile broadband networks. With the advent of mobile WiMAX, a mobile
broadband wireless access solution and based on all-IP (Internet Protocol) based OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiple Access) technology, an UMTS-WiMAX