A Location-Based Handoff Scheme Based on IEEE 802.21 in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) proposed 802.21 media independent handover function (MIHF) in 2006 to help information exchange for handoff in heterogeneous wireless systems. However, this protocol does not define Media Independent Information service (MIIS for short) messages and architecture of MIIS servers. Also, MIHF has the pinball problem. To solve these problems, in this paper we proposed a location-based architecture for MIIS servers in which MIIS servers are organized as a hierarchy, and the algorithms for choosing the most suitable target network are also addressed. Experimental results show that the scheme can effectively solve the above mentioned problems, and its network handoff procedure has higher working efficiency than that of 802.21 handoff procedure.