Seamless proactive handover across heterogeneous access networks

Abstract

Dual-mode handsets and multimode terminals are generating demand for solutions that enable convergence and seamless handover across heterogeneous access networks. The IEEE 802.21 working group is creating a framework that defines a Media Independent Handover Function (MIHF), facilitates handover across heterogeneous access networks, and helps mobile users experience better performance during mobility events. In this paper, we describe this 802.21 framework and also summarize a Media-independent Pre-Authentication (MPA) mechanism currently under discussion within the IRTF that can further optimize handover performance. We discuss how the 802.21 framework and the MPA technique can be integrated to improve handover performance. Finally, we describe a test-bed implementation and validate experimental performance results of the combined mobility technique.

Heterogeneous Mobility in Next Generation Devices: An Android-Based Case Study

“…Figure 1 shows the architecture of the MIH framework. Media Independent Event Service The MIES provides an asynchronous service to the upper layers by reporting both local and remote events [6]. These events represent changes that occur in the link layers, such as links status or link quality events.…”

A Novel Handoff Necessity Estimation Approach Based on Travelling Distance

“…The heterogeneous network is the group of technologies which can be accessed to allow the user to have seamless mobility and best quality of service at all time such as high coverage of cellular networks and high bandwidth of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) [1]. To allow seamless mobility and always best connected services to mobile user, there is a need to develop an efficient Vertical Handoff Decision (VHD) algorithm.…”

Maximizing the reliability of dual homed, critical services in wireless/cellular networks

“…To improve the handover performance several proposals exist such as pre-authentication [3,4] and activation of resources in the target network [5]. Common for the proposals described in [3][4][5] is the usage of Media Independent Handover (MIH) [6] as a framework for obtaining information of access points in the area. Typical handover algorithms are local hop-by-hop based decisions, where handover decisions are taken independently of potential future handovers.…”