Adaptive Hysteresis Margin for Handover in Femtocell Networks

The challenge of elimination of redundant handovers is getting more significant while femtocells with small radius are deployed in networks. The utilization of the femtocells results to more frequent initiation of a handover procedure. This paper focuses on an adaptation of actual level of hysteresis margin according to the position of the user in a cell. The hysteresis margin is commonly used parameter for elimination of redundant handovers. The purpose of this paper is to propose mechanism with minimum requirements on conventional network and user's equipment and with a simple implementation. Evaluations of proposal in term of efficiency of the redundant handovers reduction as well as an impact on the user's throughput in 4G wireless networks are carried out. The results show significant reduction of the amount of handovers while reducing the impact on the throughput.