Mobility Management Optimization via Inference of Roaming Behavior

This paper contributes to the topic of mobility management anticipation via the exploitation of preferred network ranking utility functions. The work proposes, implements, and evaluates a set of ranking functions based on Quality of Service and Quality of Experience indicators. Such indicators are obtained via wireless overhearing, or via active network probing. The functions also take into consideration recommendations from neighboring nodes. The implementation of the functions has been integrated into open-source software. The proposed implementation is evaluated via experiments carried out on a wireless testbed in terms of handover time to completion, total handovers successfully achieved, and rejected handovers. Results obtained show that overhearing is relevant to estimate mobility, as it brings in more sensitivity and lowers the cost of active probing.