Mobility management application protocol (MMAP) for North American PCS networks

Abstract

The task of North American personal communication services (PCS) standards has been undertaken by two organizations, i.e. Committee T1 sponsored by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Engineering Committee TR45. Traditionally; Committee T1 has been the major force behind the development of the North American wireline standards whereas TR45's focus has been the wireless information networks and mobility management. Another TIA Committee, TR46, was also involved with defining standard interfaces for PCS networks. Subcommittee T1S1 established the mobility management application protocol (MMAP) subworking group in 1994 to produce a stage 3 protocol for supporting the mobility management requirements of the radio access systems defined by the Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of T1 and TIA. T1S1 MMAP SWG issued the first version of the standard in June 1995 and ballot comments were resolved in September 1995. The standard, T1.651-1996, includes operations defined between the service control function (SCF) and the radio access control function (RACF) as well as the interface between RACFs. The second phase, which has already started, addresses the interface between the RACF and the radio control function (RCF) as well as additional operations for the SCF-RACF and RACF-RACF interfaces.