Handoff procedure for heterogeneous wireless networks

Handoff is an important issue when considering mobility in heterogeneous telecommunication networks. During the past ten years, telecommunication networks have emerged as a central strategic component in various fields. Today, added flexibility of the heterogeneous wireless networks in the form of robust inter-technology mobility management schemes and sophisticated algorithms is becoming more important. Also data applications and IP protocols have become more important players when designing future architechtures. This paper gives a novel approach to procedures, algorithms and metrics involved in handoff in heterogeneous wireless networks. A network layer Mobile IP based handoff procedure between WLAN and GPRS is presented as a case study example.