IP-Based Fast Handoff Scheme for Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Among the key issues of next-generation wireless networks (NGWN), mobility management is one of the most crucial. In fact, provision of seamless roaming and services continuity is required for multimedia applications and particularly in presence of heterogeneous wireless environments. Although several IP-based mobility protocols have been proposed in the literature, they are not able to guarantee seamless roaming, especially for real-time applications. This paper proposes an efficient handoff protocol, called enhanced handoff protocol for integrated networks (eHPIN). This protocol carries out localized mobility management, fast or anticipated handoff, and access network discovery in order to alleviates services disruption during roaming in heterogeneous IPv6-based wireless environments. Simulation results show benefits of eHPIN in term of signaling traffic overhead cost, end-to-end throughput, handoff latency and packet loss compared to existing IPv6-based mobility management protocols.