Personal communication systems (PCS) have more signalling traffic than conventional fixed networks and require large-scale databases to manage users' profiles, which are sets of data items, such as the location the user is currently visiting and the user's authentication key, necessary for a PCS user to be provided with PCS services. This paper focuses on inter-network roaming in PCS environments. In designing a PCS supporting roaming service, it is essential to avoid increased signalling traffic and data searching time in the database. We first identify the appropriate domains for three routing schemes-Direction Routing, Redirection Routing, and Look-ahead Routing-from the viewpoints of the number of signals for inter-network roaming and roaming probability. We do this for two kinds of PCS database network architecture, Home Location Register (HLR) and Visitor Location Register (VLR), and show that Look-ahead Routing is the best scheme for the HLR network architecture (considering the number of signals for intra-network and inter-network database access) and that in the VLR network architecture, the decreasing of the roaming probability expands domains for which Redirection Routing is appropriate. We also propose a generic PCS data model that inter-network roaming interfaces can use to search effectively for a user's profile. The data model clarifies the contents of a set of data items which share certain characteristics, data items that the contents compose, and the relationships (data structures) between sets of data items. The model is based on the X. 500 series recommendations, which are applied for an Intelligent Network. We also propose a data structure between sets of data items using the directory information tree and show the ASN. 1 notations of the data model.

In a personal communication system (PCS), a scheme for reforwarding call-terminating setup messages (SETUP messages) from a network or a cell station is used to guard against their loss. We have developed a method for evaluating the loss probability of a reforwarding scheme in which the network monitors the response messages from a personal station after forwarding a SETUP message to that personal station and reforwards the SETUP message only if a response message is not received. We started with a stochastic model in which messages registered in the paging-channel queue in a cell station are cyclically forwarded to the wireless area. This model corresponds to the finite-capacity M/D/1/N model with vacation time. We then added a method for calculating the "timeout" probability. Next we expanded the model into one in which the SETUP messages are reforwarded when a response message is not received by the network. This model corresponds to the M/D/1/N model with vacation time and retrials. We then added an approximate method for calculating the loss probability. Finally, using the proposed methods, we clarified the traffic characteristics of PCS call-terminating control.

This paper clarifies the appropriate traffic domains for combination between two database schemes (i. e. , HLR database scheme and VLR database scheme) and two call routing schemes (i. e. , Redirection Routing scheme and Look-a-head Routing scheme) in the Global Mobility Network (GLOMONET), which is able to provide global roaming service for the personal telecommunication user. The appropriate domains for combination between each scheme are shown to depend on user's mobility (i. e. the frequency of a user's access to a network where the user stays, the length of the period during which the user stays in the same network). Whether the appropriate domains for the HLR database scheme exist depends only on the frequency of the user's access to the network. When there are appropriate domains for the HLR database scheme, increasing the frequency of the user's access to the network, decreasing the length of the period the user stays in the user's home network, or increasing the length of the period the user stays in a network that isn't the user's home network widens the domains where the VLR database scheme is appropriate.