A Network-Controlled Architecture for SCTP Hard Handover

SCTP faces three performance problems in hard handover scenarios: high network handover delay, high transport handover delay and throughput under-utilization. Existing solutions assume the mobile extension of SCTP (m-SCTP) as a unique way to handle handovers and rely on terminal mechanisms. Nevertheless, they are not efficient as they lack the necessary information to perform on-time and fine SCTP configuration tuning during handovers. We propose in this paper an overall mobility management architecture (UFA) replacing m-SCTP. UFA uses network-controlled mechanisms and SIP protocol to reduce the network handover delay and drive the optimal SCTP configuration on both SCTP endpoints. We simulate and compare UFA and m-SCTP. Results are promising and show better performances for UFA, even when compared with enhanced m-SCTP solutions.