Improving broadcast cell handover performance by the use of an additional interactivity channel

Current handover mechanisms for broadcast systems such as DVB-H, DVB-T, or DAB are based on the unidirectional broadcast transmission channel only and therefore have some performance limitations. Handovers in mobile communications systems such as GSM or UMTS make use of a bi-directional connection between the terminal and the network infrastructure. Such bi-directional connections provide more possibilities and can significantly increase the probability of successful handovers without any interruption in service consumption. This paper proposes a novel handover mechanism for DVB-H terminals. DVB-H terminals typically have access to a cellular telephone network which is proposed to be used as an interactivity channel to improve the performance of DVB-H cell handovers.