Selecting vertical handover candidates in IEEE 802.11 mesh networks

The IEEE 802.11 working group currently integrates the option of mesh networking into its standard for WLANs. In addition to WLAN meshes, future wireless networks will be expanded by multiple heterogeneous access technologies such as UMTS and WiMax. These technologies differ greatly regarding medium access scheme, network capacity, QoS support, choice of data rates, and other various parameters such as power consumption and AAA aspects. Even though current research focuses on different network access selection and handover strategies maximizing the utilization for such a heterogeneous network, it is still an open issue how to select ldquoinefficientrdquo mobiles as vertical handover candidates. This work presents a novel scheme for the selection of handover candidates which is exemplarily discussed for an IEEE 802.11 WLAN mesh. After exploring the design rationale of the decision metric, simulation studies show the impact of single and multiple handovers on remaining users in the cell.