A terminal-controlled vertical handover decision scheme in IEEE 802.21-enabled heterogeneous wireless networks

The seamless internetworking among heterogeneous networks is in great demand to provide 'always-on' connectivity services with quality of service (QoS) provision, anywhere at anytime. The integration of wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) and wireless metropolitan area networks (WiMAX) networks can combine their best features to provide ubiquitous access, while mediating the weakness of both networks. While it is challenging to obtain optimized handover decision-based dynamic QoS information, users can improve their perceived QoS by using the terminal-controlled handover decision in a single device equipped with multiple radio interfaces. The IEEE 802.21 aims at providing a framework that defines media-independent handover (MIH) mechanism that supports seamless handover across heterogeneous networks. In this paper, an multiple attributes decision making-based terminal-controlled vertical handover decision scheme using MIH services is proposed in the integrated Wi-Fi and WiMAX networks to provide 'always-on' connectivity QoS services. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme provides smaller handover times and lower dropping rate than the RSS-based and cost function-based vertical handover schemes.