The increase will of ubiquitous access of the users to the requested services points towards the integration of heterogeneous networks. In this sense, a user shall be able to access its services through different access technologies, such as WLAN, Wimax, UMTS and DVB technologies, from the same or different network operators, and to seamless move between different networks with active communications.In this paper we propose an end-to-end QoS architecture able to support this users' ubiquitous access and seamless movement. This architecture is able to support QoS on unicast and multicast services, as well as in unicast and broadcast unidirectional networks, in multihomed environments. The integration of measurements for aid in admission control, inter-domain QoS approach, and integration with mobility is also presented.

IEEE 802.16 networks provide mechanisms for QoS support at MAC level, but end-to-end QoS issues are not addressed in detail in the standards. This paper presents an analysis and an experimental validation of a comprehensive solution that describes and implements end-to-end QoS in networks with IEEE802.16e segments. A complete QoS model has been specified, defining the traffic descriptors, the QoS parameters and the resource management functions for networks with WiMAX access. This QoS model has been applied to the Next Step in Signalling (NSIS) protocol suite and its impact has been evaluated on end-to-end QoS when heterogeneous network domains are involved. This work is based on the of results of activities focussed on the study of signalling protocols, carried out within the EU Integrated Project WEIRD (WiMAX Extension to Isolated Research Data networks).

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The convergence of services and technologies has been driven by service and network providers with the aim to develop a unified infrastructure. From the services side, we have multimedia through unicast, multicast and broadcast services. From the technologies side, we have wired and wireless technologies, including unidirectional technologies such as Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB). These trends allied to the increasing mobility and QoS demands, introduce strong requirements to future telecommunication networks. This paper presents an innovative approach to handle multicast services in a heterogeneous networks environment, including broadcast technologies. The presented architecture aims at guaranteeing end-to-end QoS in mobile scenarios, efficiently handling the underlying network resources and integrating the emerging broadcast technologies. This architecture was developed in a real environment with mobility of multicast sessions through heterogeneous technologies, Wi-Fi and DVB, using also Wi-Fi as a return channel. The results show that the architecture is able to support the seamless mobility of users receiving multicast sessions, with low degradation on the running communications.