Enhancement to seamless vertical handover in a micro-mobility domain

The interworking and interoperation of heterogeneous wireless networks over a common IP infrastructure enable ubiquitous access to network services in next generation wireless networks (NGN). This wireless access network heterogeneity combined with the availability of multi-interface mobile devices creates an environment where handovers between different access technologies is inevitable. Therefore, operators with multiple networks will need to facilitate seamless network access across their multiple systems. However, mobility management protocols do not provide seamless handover in their current form. Thus, we propose to introduce a handover coordinator in heterogeneous wireless network environment supported by Proxy Mobile IPv6 to enhance seamless and soft handover that will reduce handover delay and packet loss during the handover period. Simulation results show that the proposed network-based handover mechanism reduces handover delay and number of dropped packets though at the sacrifice of a slight signaling overhead.