Handover latency analysis on mobile Ethernet

The next generation (NG) wireless system, called beyond 3G, is envisioned as a seamless worldwide wireless system. Handover latency is an important metric for the NG wireless system. This paper analyzes the handover latency of mobility support schemes including mobile Ethernet. We compare various mobility support schemes from multiple viewpoints. For the quantitative evaluation, we introduce an analytical network model through a Markovian model. The sequence of location update frames in four schemes, i.e., mobile Ethernet, a scheme using MPLS, a scheme using VLAN tag, and mobile IPv6, formulates the handover latency and handover costs. The combination of the latency of each switch, router, and link defines handover latency. The feature of this analysis is that it evaluates the latency of four schemes within the same model. Numerical results show mobile Ethernet achieves small handover latency. By means of analytical results concerning handover latency and handover costs, we consider the benefit of each scheme.