Ontology for Cellular Communication

The lack of interoperability between mobile cellular access networks has long been a challenging obstacle, which telecommunication engineering is trying to overcome. In second generation networks for example, this problem lies in the fact that there are multiple standards. Each of these standards can operate in the same frequency range. However, each utilizes a different Radio Technology and Modulation Scheme, which are characteristics of the standard. Therefore, the lack of interoperability in 2G occurs because of the lack of standardization. Interoperability within 3G networks is limited to a few operating modes using different Radio Transmission Technologies that are not inter-operable. Thus, interoperability remains an issue for 3G. 4G technology even being successful in its various trials cannot guarantee the interoperability. This is within each network generation; meanwhile between heterogeneous network generations the situation seems to be worst. The undertaken approach to overcome the interoperability issues between heterogeneous network generations begins by establishing a holistic understanding of cellular communication systems (a starting point for interoperability improvement), and proposing an ontological approach that expresses the cellular communication systems’ concepts, classes, and properties in a formal and unambiguous way. This approach is first to analyze the structure, inputs, and outputs of three different cellular technologies, performing a domain analysis (of this subset of technologies) and producing a feature model of the domain. Finally, we sought to build an ontology capable of providing a common view of the domain, providing an effective representation of relations between representations of corresponding concepts in different cellular technologies.