Logical Interface for Soft Handover -- An Effective Scheme of Handovers in Proxy Mobile IPv6

Multimedia services are currently commonly available on mobile devices. Due to networks' convergence and migration to all-IP networks, mobility management at network layer is required. Moreover, nowadays it is popular to equip mobile devices with more than one wireless interface. Thus, soft handovers can be implemented, which means that an existing connection is removed after a new one is established. Usage of the Logical Interfaces is one of techniques considered as a practical solution of soft handovers at data-link layer. However, there is still a lack of efficient approaches that integrate both data-link layer and network layer mobility management mechanisms. The authors propose a new scheme for soft handovers in the Proxy Mobile IPv6 domain using the Logical Interface. Evaluation of the new mechanism in WLAN and LAN networks was conducted to verify its efficiency.