Vertical handover (VHO) framework for future collaborative wireless networks

Abstract

SUMMARYThe paper focuses on the concept of the vertical handover (VHO) among collaborative wireless networks, which is the necessary driver for seamless mobility and thus for the ability of the user to be always best connected. The paper discusses the required enabling architecture for distributed VHO decision making that is based on the principles of the IEEE 1900.4 standard and on the key media‐independent signaling procedure related to the IEEE 802.21 standard. The proposed framework combines the ‘lower‐layer’ and ‘higher layer’ intelligence in a unified and media‐independent way, to drive handover decisions based on rich terminal and network context information. The paper provides a detailed description of the VHO framework and of the key interactions between its key functional blocks. Additionally, the paper includes a series of validation results corresponding to an implementation of the presented framework. Furthermore, the paper includes a discussion comparing the capabilities offered by the proposed framework with those proposed by other similar proposals, which shows the potential benefits and tradeoffs of the introduced concepts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.