Abstract
The 4th Generation of mobile communication networks will use heterogeneous wireless technologies. Voice and low quality video flows will consist of very small FP packets, for which the standard RTP/UDP/IP headers constitute a significant overhead. Considering that the radio resources are scarce, this overhead may be unacceptable and the adoption of header compression mechanisms is desirable. This paper presents a solution for including RoHC header compression mechanisms within 4G networks; the solution is combined with the mechanisms required to provide QoS to the real time flows. © 2005 IEEE.

Abstract
Real-time multimedia applications, such as VoIP, video conferencing or on-line gaming are key applications to the success of 4G. In today's Internet these applications are not subject to congestion control, therefore the growth of popularity of these applications may endanger the stability of the Internet. On the other hand, 4G networks will be much more dynamic due to mobility and multi-homing, and the network conditions may vary abruptly requiring a fast response from the control mechanism. In this article we compare the feedback-based to the reservation-based congestion control approach and focus on the first one, by evaluating some mechanisms with respect to Media Friendliness, Scalability and Dynamic Behaviour. We also present a set of requirements for the ideal congestion control mechanism of real-time flows in 4G networks. © 2005 IEEE.

Abstract
Ad-hoc networks that are connected with the infrastructure Internet are named hybrid ad-hoc networks. In 4G communications scenarios, hybrid ad-hoc networks seem to be valuable since they may increase the coverage of wireless networks with minor costs. Using them, terminals out of range of an access point or a base station, or not having adequate network interfaces, may reach the operator's infrastructure via other terminals. This paper presents a hybrid ad-hoc network solution and a testbed implementation.

Abstract
The eXplicit Control Protocol (XCP) was developed to overcome some of the limitations of TCP, such as low utilization in high bandwidth delay product networks, unstable throughput, large queue build-up, and limited fairness. XCP, however, requires that each queue controller in a path knows the exact capacity of its link. In shared access media, e.g. IEEE 802.11, knowing the actual capacity of the channel is a difficult task. In this paper we propose modifications to the XCP algorithm that enable the utilization of XCP even when the capacity of a link is unknown. These modifications are validated through simulation. We also present the results of a comparison between the performance of the modified XCP and TCP, where XCP controlled flows result more stable, fairness increases, and the network delay becomes lower. In addition, as the bandwidth delay product increases, XCP is able to maintain near-maximum utilization while TCP decreases utilization.

Abstract
XCP-b proposes a modification to the XCP router algorithm that computes the spare bandwidth. The modification removes the need for an XCP router to know the exact capacity of the channel, making it possible to use the XCP-b variant in transmission media where the capacity is hard to measure. An example of this kind of medium is the IEEE 802.11. Previous work shows that XCP-b behaves well in single-hop wireless networks and that it Outperforms TCP in terms of fairness, queuing delay, stability and efficiency when the bandwidth delay product of the network grows. In this paper we extend the validation and evaluation of XCP-b to the case of multi-hop wireless networks, both stand-alone and as access networks to other wired networks. The results show that XCP-b maintains its fundamental characteristics in wireless multi-hop scenarios, such as stable throughput and low standing queues, while distributing the bandwidth fairly and using the available capacity efficiently. The simulations also show that XCP-b produces congestion window values that are closer than TCP to the theoretical upper-bound which maximizes spatial reuse.

Abstract
Emerging access networks will use heterogeneous wireless technologies such as 802.11, 802.16 or UMTS, to offer users the best access to the Internet. Layer 2 access networks will consist of wireless bridges (access points) that isolate, concatenated, or in mesh provide access to mobile nodes. The transport of real time traffic over these networks may demand new QoS signalling, used to reserve resources. Besides the reservation, the new signalling needs to address the dynamics of the wireless links, the mobility of the terminals, and the multicast traffic. In this paper a new protocol is proposed aimed at solving this problem-the QoS Abstraction Layer (QoSAL). Existing only at the control plane, the QoSAL is located above the layer 2 and hides from layer 3 the details of each technology with respect to the QoS and to the network topology. The QoSAL has been designed, simulated, and tested. The results obtained demonstrate its usefulness in 4G networks.