Architecture for wireless access in vehicles

With the recent advancement of mobile wireless technologies including wireless LANs and mobile access routers, it has become viable to create a network-in-motion inside a vehicle. This paper presents an architecture for wireless access in vehicles, to facilitate real-world deployments. A mobile access router provides network connectivity to multiple wireless networks, from wireless LANs to wide area mobile networks such as CDPD or CDMA, in a size ideal for vehicles. A wireless LAN allows a low-cost deployment of high-speed wireless networks in a metro area. In addition, by using mobile IP, VPN, and other intelligent network services, the networked vehicle can achieve seamless roaming and secured network connectivity anytime and anywhere. The possibility for innovative, multimedia applications on this versatile architecture is endless.