Base Station Controlled Load Balancing with Handovers in Mobile WiMAX

In this paper we examine base station controlled handover based load balancing in the mobile WiMAX system and study the framework that mobile WiMAX offers for conducting load balancing and directed handovers. We also propose and evaluate a BS initiated load balancing scheme for mobile WiMAX. The simulations show that the proposed scheme can balance load efficiently within the system but also avoid the so called handover ldquoping-pongrdquo effect especially harmful e.g. for VoIP connections. We also propose an addition to the mobile WiMAX specification to distinguish load balancing based directed handovers and signal quality based rescue handovers conducted by moving terminals. This way the more important rescue handovers can be prioritized in a target Base Station.