Mobility extension for Broadband Satellite Multimedia

This paper presents an extension for broadband satellite multimedia (BSM) to support mobility management (MM). To support seamless handovers, mobility related entities are proposed in the satellite independent access function (SIAF) defined over the SI-SAP interface. This enables the mapping of the mobility related primitives between the higher layer and the satellite dependant lower layers via the satellite dependent access function (SDAF). The proposed MM architecture incorporates the media independent handover services defined in the IEEE 802.21 to support handover between different satellite systems. This includes definition of the media independent handover function (MIHF) which provides interworking between heterogeneous 802 networks and between 802 and other terrestrial mobile networks through the support of three services for handover, namely, media independent event services (MIES), media independent command services (MICS) and media independent information services (MIIS). A detailed description of the function architecture and a case study showing the signalling interaction between MIH and SI-SAP primitives are presented.