Seamless Handover for High-Speed Trains Using Femtocell-Based Multiple Egress Network Interfaces

Abstract

High-speed rail systems are becoming increasingly popular among long-distance travelers. With the explosive growth in the number of mobile devices, the provision of high-quality telecommunication and Internet access services on high-speed trains is now a pressing problem. Network mobility (NEMO) has been proposed to enable a large number of mobile devices on a vehicle to access the Internet; however, several issues must be solved before it can be put into practice, e.g., frequent handovers, long handover latency, and poor quality of service. To resolve these problems, we propose an LTE femtocell-based network mobility scheme that uses multiple egress network interfaces to support seamless handover for high-speed rail systems called MEN-NEMO. The results of simulations show that the proposed MEN-NEMO scheme reduces the handover latency and transmission overhead of handover signaling substantially.