Hi all I was wondering if something I have been thinking about makes any sense. This concerns the upcoming (or so they say, the operators have been postponing the roll-out dates for the past one year) 2.5G and 3G networks (GPRS and UMTS/W-CDMA). Now, within a GPRS network, since the GGSN would be the bridging factor between the SGSN and the internet at large, and will include key functionalities like dishing out IP addresses to the GPRS handsets (via DHCP), will it make sense to have a mega IP management layer implemented real-time within the GGSN which will include functionalities like - efficient IP address management agents, quality of service, mobile IP support, multicast support layers, etc. ? I was also thinking of whether a IP proxy system in the GGSN which will act on behalf of the handset and which will let the handset remain dormant at will and not go into the PDP mode at the slightest amount of data would make sense. This way the handset may wish *not* to go into the PDP mode for a said period of time and the IP proxy system will be collecting all the incoming data for the handset. This may be useful for example when one if trying to download a file and knows that he/she will be moving into an area with poor radio coverage for the next few 10s of minutes. He/she may then start the download and relegate the operation to the proxy. In addition, I thought transition and tunneling tools for IPv6<->IPv4 at the GGSN would also be nice. Also, would it make sense to put a WAP gateway within the IP layer itself implying that we do not dedicate a server machine for the WAP gateway but make it an integral part of the GGSN itself running on a real time OS. Now, I know that WAP in its current version is not the best we can have and has lots of flaws (foremost of which is that it breaks the end-to-end model of the internet), but, with WAP 2.0, it promises to be totally IP based and will use XHTML for the data format. Now, in such a scenario it will become more of a data validation engine and some sort of content repurposing gateway to suit the various mobiles. Has anyone thought of or working on implementing an IP layer inclusive of a WAP gateway along with efficient mobile IP management functions ? -- /amlan
