SIP-Based Handoff Scheme in Next Generation Wireless Networks

Increasing demand for ubiquitous high speed data access has resulted in widespread deployment of heterogeneous wireless networking domains. Integration of heterogeneous networks presents some considerable challenges which include the demand for seamless handoff, continuity of data traffic & multimedia sessions and central authentication system, billing & security. In this paper the main concern is to achieve terminal mobility between heterogeneous networks and evaluating the performance during handoff. Two SIP handoff schemes are used and compared to evaluate the performance of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as a mobility management protocol between heterogeneous wireless networks, Soft SIP-based seamless handoff (S-SIP) and SIP-based Soft Handoff with B2BUA. After illustrating the signaling message flows in the two handoff schemes we propose a new technique, Host Agent-Based SIP Session set up, to reduce the SIP session re-setup delay in VoIP service environment. This new technique is applied with the two SIP handoff schemes, VoIP performance parameters are analyzed and compared using OPNET simulation tool.