Avoiding Data Loss With Hard and Soft DVB-H Handovers

Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) allows the efficient transmission of rich multimedia services to small, handheld terminals. Such portable terminals pose specific requirements on the transmission technology, such as the need for seamless cell handover. This paper first presents mechanisms which allow loss-free hard handovers with DVB-H using only a single receiver front-end. It is then shown how even 3G-like soft handovers are possible with DVB-H, still using only a single receiver front-end. The proposed schemes are evaluated using simulations and field measurements.