A mobility enhancement for switched wireless Ethernet with soft handoff

With the proliferation of mobile users, wireless LANs (WLANs) are quickly entering enterprise networks. These networks have traditionally been configured in a shared Ethernet topology. Due to the tremendous performance increase over shared Ethernet, most corporations´ networks are slowly being migrated to a switched Ethernet topology. Traditional Ethernet switches do not suffice to completely take advantage of this WLAN technology. When WLANs use Ethernet switching as a backbone, service disruption may occur when attempting to migrate from one cell to another. This disruption does not occur on shared Ethernet networks. The authors propose a soft handoff procedure to ensure optimal performance, minimal service disruption, as well as minimal broadcast frames.