A new mechanism for fast handover between heterogeneous networks

This paper proposes a new handover mechanism between WiMAX and WLAN networks. It can support low latency by simplifying re-authentication process during handover. The proposed scheme allocates MA ID (Mobile Agent Identifier) as AAA key during initial connection establishment to WiMAX or WLAN. The MA ID plays a role as general AAA key which enables the MN to access to all ANs (Access Networks) connected with core network. During handover, a MN requests access with the MA ID and each AN allows the MN to access without additional key allocation. This paper verifies that the proposed scheme has lower handover latency than the existing one via numerical analysis.