Design Issues of 4G-Network Mobility Management

Abstract

Fourth Generation wireless networking (4G network) is expected to provide global roaming across different types of wireless and mobile networks. In this environment, roaming is seamless and users are always connected to the best network. Moreover, 4G networks will be packet switched systems entirely based on the IPv6 protocol. The essentiality of Quality of Service (QoS) and the heterogeneous nature of 4G pose high demands onto the mobility management technology. Due to this, one of the most challenging research areas for the 4G network is the design of intelligent mobility management techniques that take advantage of IP-based technologies to achieve global roaming among various access technologies. In order to address the issue of heterogeneity of the networks, IEEE 802.21 working group proposed Media Independent Handover (MIH). The scope of the IEEE 802.21 MIH standard is to develop a specification that provides link layer intelligence and other related network information to upper layers to optimize handovers between heterogeneous media. The IEEE 802.21 group defines the media independent handover function that will help mobile devices to roam across heterogeneous networks and stationary devices to switch over to any of the available heterogeneous networks around it.