This paper discusses the mobility management for high-speed users, which is a crucial challenge for all mobile operators, especially when users are moving vertically across different network technologies. Mobility, also known as seamless connectivity, is directly influencing the quality of service (QoS). Mobility management-Handover (HO) performance was evaluated by field measurements of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network of a mobile operator in the Middle East. Drive test measurements were used to analyze the results of different high-speed scenarios. User Equipment (UE) with high speed of 80-140km/h causes a high risk of failure of seamless connectivity as the HO procedure timing is longer than for UE with smaller speed. HO failure and call drop may occur when UE is moving with high speed across two adjacent cells in highways. During measurements, HO failure occurred when UE speed was 140km/h, and HO preparation timing increased when UE speed increased.

High-speed mobility system has now become a serious concern for mobile operators due to the large frameworks of a heterogeneous network made up of multiple cell types and different frequency bands. Handover (HO) is conducted in a real-life scenario when the user equipment (UE) moves from one network coverage to another by performing proper measurement with high speed. HO breakdown and call loss are observed due to a high speed; thus, high-speed mobility system needs improvement by using the UE speed as one of the key measurement monitoring criteria for the long-term evolution (LTE) network. Vendor consultation has been considered in this paper in addition to real drive test measurement in highways. Results have shown that velocity has a direct impact on the handover quality and overall timing. Results also demonstrate that 120 km/h measurement is better than 140 km/h as UE speed.

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