Vertical Handover between Wireless Standards

The dynamics of handover between two coexisting wireless standards and the consequent exploitation of the offered diversity by the use of multi-standard terminals has been discussed. The potential capacity benefits of mobile-initiated vertical handovers are substantial. However, it is important to choose the correct VHO criteria in order to achieve optimum load balancing and equilibrium states (global and social). Two fast-handover schemes are presented, which exhibit fast convergence to the socially optimal states by allowing a subset of the necessary VHOs among the AIs. In all cases the scheme with replicator dynamics, had the best performance at the cost of an increased vertical handover rate.