Event Trigger Based Realistic Performance of MIH for Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Wireless technology has become an indispensable part of people's daily life. As a subscriber to any wireless service, the user expects uninterrupted wireless data and phone services, maybe at a cheaper cost. Furthermore, customers anticipate an “always-on connection” from networks, i.e., they want services to be available everywhere and at any time, regardless of the service provider or underlying technology. However, because various wireless standards and technologies are emerging worldwide, handshaking or handoff (also known as vertical/intersystem/seamless handoff) between different standards is unavoidable to provide seamless services. MIP (Mobile Internet Protocol), Hierarchical MIP (HMIP), and Fast MIP (FMIP) are some of the options for handling flawless handover needs. Another unique solution is proposed in the IEEE 802.21 standard, MIH (Media Independent Handover). In this paper, we propose a realistic performance evaluation of MIH based on the link-layer event triggers like Link up, Link down, Link detected, etc., for optimized QoS parameters such as packet loss and handover delay. We consider realistic terminal speeds and application traffic for a defined scenario. The performance evaluation of MIH is carried out for two modern heterogeneous wireless networks, LTE/WiMAX and Wi-Fi.