Evaluation of Scan and Association Process for Real-Time Communication in Mobile WiMAX

One of the most important issues in offering real-time communication services in a mobile environment is support for seamless handover between base stations during a communication session. In Mobile WiMAX, a mobile station may have to perform a scan and association process before handover, but unfortunately, this scan and association process introduces service disruption. In this letter, we investigate the scan and association latency in Mobile WiMAX, and evaluate its performance through analytic models and simulations.