An enhanced information server for seamless vertical handover in IEEE 802.21 MIH networks

1389-1286/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2010.08.005 q A preliminary version of this paper was prese Symposium on Communication and Information Tec September 2009. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 3290 4825; fa E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Pack). Seamless vertical handover is a key requirement in heterogeneous wireless networks where different networks are integrated. In this paper, we introduce an enhanced information server (EIS) to accelerate vertical handover procedures in IEEE 802.21 media independent handover (MIH) networks. Based on the EIS, we propose an improved vertical handover procedure in which wireless channel conditions are estimated by exploiting spatial and temporal locality at the EIS, and therefore time consuming channel scanning procedures can be skipped. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can reduce the vertical handover latency under diverse environments. 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.