Probe request based Load Balancing Metric with timely handoffs for WLANs

As the number of mobile devices accessing large-scale WLANs such as campus and metropolitan area networks increases, the need for load balancing among the cells becomes crucial. In addition, the network must also support some minimum handoff tolerance defined by an application. This paper proposes a new metric that provides load balance as well as timely handoffs for WLANs by taking into account both direct and hidden node collisions.