How This Book Is Organized

The book is structured in two main sections. Part One provides necessary background material to prepare you for the discussion on MVPN, such as an overview of related standard bodies, a practical guide to standard documentations, and a discussion of the current state of standardization in the area of wireless data. The second part focuses on the subject at hand— Mobile VPN—and other topics pertinent to providing advanced packet data services in mobile environments.

Chapter 1 introduces the mobile VPN business case and the MVPN market segment, and it gives you an overview of the wireless standardization process and a brief "standard document retrieval manual" template. Here we also provide the explanation of standards organizations' hierarchy, timelines, and milestones, as well as the organizations' involvement with particular technologies and systems. Chapter 2 provides a tutorial on relevant topics in data networking and communications, such as MPLS and IP security, while Chapters 3 and 4 discuss radio interface fundamentals and details of various cellular systems of interest, as well as background information on both circuit- and packet-switched wireless data provided within second- and third-generation systems frameworks.

Part Two provides an in-depth discussion of VPN support in the mobile environment, and it contains useful information about how wireless data and specific IP services are supported in current and next-generation cellular wireless systems, such as various flavors of CDMA2000, GPRS, and UMTS. In Chapter 5, we transition from wireless to Mobile VPN (MVPN), while providing a discussion on the VPN taxonomies, underlying technologies, tunneling and security issues, and other VPN building blocks. Chapter 6 focuses on the properties of MVPN provided in GSM and UMTS cellular systems, while Chapter 7 covers MVPN services in the CDMA2000 family of systems. Chapter 8 briefly analyzes main types of the equipment involved in Mobile VPNs. Chapter 9 concludes the book by looking at future trends and forward-looking topics such as cellular/WLAN integration issues, Mobile VPN in converged networking environments, and services provided by Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs).

This book also includes appendixes with specific information about Mobile IP extensions and RADIUS attributes and a Bibliography that lists books and standard documents containing additional material on a variety of related subjects. We believe the resulting structure should provide a sufficient foundation to follow the discussion in the second half of the book, even for the readers with limited background in wireless and data communications.