This is how we see our work fitting into the larger picture of wireless networking.

We are concentrating on the in-building wireless LAN extensions to an existing ATM network for in-home or in-office use.

Other probable wireless ATM networks include cellular and satellite services.

In the future a mobile may be able to connect to more than one of these networks at any time, using the same NIC. These connections, via different routes and service providers, will be distinguished by ATM address.

The ATM name server should therefore be able to support multiple addresses for the same end-point at the same time. Each implied route, over a different service provider, will have a different set of quality of service characteristics available and this information must somehow be made available to applications.

As mentioned the addresses will also be dynamically assigned to mobiles. If hierarchical addressing and routing is used to route connections to a mobile then the end-point address will depend on the current location of the mobile.

Thus the mobile may have a number of dynamically assigned addresses for a number of different networks each of which has some associated cost and range of QoS. The name server architecture chosen by the ATM-Forum should include support for some of these facilities.