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Handover mechanisms in next generation heterogeneous wireless ...

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TRUST ASSISTED HANDOVER ALGORITHM FOR RELIABLE HANDOVER<br />

The state-of-the-art handover approaches discussed <strong>in</strong> Chapter 2 such as Dynamic<br />

Vertical <strong>Handover</strong> Algorithm with Network Elim<strong>in</strong>ation [83], Network Selection<br />

Scheme us<strong>in</strong>g Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) [84] and Policy Enabled <strong>Handover</strong><br />

[88], [83, 84, 88] take <strong>in</strong>to account the QoS capability of candidate networks. These<br />

handover approaches assume that any discovered network can be a candidate network<br />

for handover, and is available for provid<strong>in</strong>g services at any time. Unfortunately, this is<br />

seldom the case <strong>in</strong> a multi-operator environment, which has versatile network trust<br />

relationship. A network with good QoS may be <strong>in</strong>accessible for a mobile user at all<br />

times due to roam<strong>in</strong>g agreements implemented between operators. Unavailability of<br />

network trust <strong>in</strong>formation at mobile term<strong>in</strong>als may result <strong>in</strong> unnecessary handover<br />

attempts, and thus <strong>in</strong>crease handover latency.<br />

In order to resolve trust-related handover problems <strong>in</strong> a multi-operator environment,<br />

3GPP has specified methods for manual and automatic network selection <strong>in</strong> its latest<br />

specification for 3GPP-WLAN <strong>in</strong>terwork<strong>in</strong>g TS 24.234 [72]. It is proposed that a usercontrolled<br />

or operator-controlled network identifier list can be employed by a mobile<br />

user to assist its network selection dur<strong>in</strong>g a handover. For example, the order of network<br />

selection could follow the order <strong>in</strong> the identifier list at the mobile term<strong>in</strong>al. However,<br />

the scheme of stor<strong>in</strong>g accessible networks <strong>in</strong> a static data file ignores the dynamics of<br />

network trust relationships, which may be a great challenge as stated <strong>in</strong> Chapter 4.<br />

Moreover, the versatile network trust relationships may be further complicated when a<br />

vast number of small and <strong>in</strong>dependent network operators collaborate <strong>in</strong> a global<br />

roam<strong>in</strong>g environment.<br />

For handover <strong>in</strong> a multi-operator environment, without consideration on network trust<br />

relationships, the current approaches [72] appears more likely as an add-on rather than<br />

an <strong>in</strong>tegral part of handover solution.<br />

5.2 Related Work<br />

<strong>Handover</strong> algorithms are employed to deal with two ma<strong>in</strong> th<strong>in</strong>gs dur<strong>in</strong>g a handover:<br />

network selection and handover trigger<strong>in</strong>g. Network selection determ<strong>in</strong>es the most<br />

appropriate network, to which a mobile user can be switched and get the best QoS <strong>in</strong> a<br />

handover. <strong>Handover</strong> trigger<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>itiates the switch<strong>in</strong>g of a mobile user to the selected<br />

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