yesThe current Internet architecture appears to
not be particularly suited to addressing the
emerging needs of new classes of users who wish
to gain access to multimedia services made available
by ISPs, regardless of their location, while
in motion and with a guaranteed level of quality.
One of the main objectives of so-called nextgeneration
systems is to overcome the limitations
of today¿s available Internet by adopting an
approach based on the integration of different
mobile and fixed networks. The SUITED project
moves in this direction since it aims at contributing
to the design and deployment of the global
mobile broadband system (GMBS), a unique
satellite/terrestrial infrastructure ensuring
nomadic users access to Internet services with a
negotiated QoS. A description of the main features
of the GMBS architecture, characterized
by the integration of a multisegment access network
with a federated ISP network is given in
this article. The GMBS multimode terminal is
schematically described, and an overview of the
so-called QoS-aware mobility management
scheme, devised for such a heterogeneous scenario,is provided
