Mobility Management for NGN WiMAX: Specification and Implementation

Authors

Abstract

The anticipated deployment of IEEE 802.16-based wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs) will usher a new era in broadband wireless communications. The adoption of the WiMAX technology for remote areas, for example, can address challenging scenarios in a cost-effective manner. While WiMAX Forum documents describe an architecture that inherently supports Quality of Service and mobility, several areas are left uncovered. We present an architecture which integrates WiMAX, Quality of Service and mobility management frameworks over heterogeneous networks, developing mechanisms for seamless handovers. Our approach takes into consideration the expected deployment of, on the one hand, the IEEE 802.21 (Media Independent Handover) proposed standard and, on the other, the IETF-standardized Next Steps in Signalling framework. The first contributions of this paper comprise a specification of the mechanisms for make-before-break vertical handovers taking Quality of Service signalling into account and the integration in a heterogeneous environment. The latter contribution is an empirical evaluation of the proposed architecture using a testbed demonstrator. We quantify the processing delays of the main components in our prototype implementation when a terminal hands over between different access technologies, demonstrating the potential of the proposed architecture.

Keywords

WiMAX, NGN, Mobile

Subject

Mobile Networks, Beyond 3G networks, Het

Related Project

IST FP6 WEIRD - WiMAX Extension to Isolated Research Data networks (Integrated Project 034622)

Conference

10th IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM 2009), June 2009