An improved scheme for reducing handover latency in heterogeneous networks

This paper proposes an improved MM (Mobility Management) scheme for fast handover between WiMAX and WLAN networks. It simplifies re-authentication and IP configuration process and supports low handover latency by using general AAA key, MA ID (Mobility Agent Identifier). For this, the proposed scheme allocates MA ID to a MN during initial connection establishment. During handover, the MN requests access to new network with the MA ID and all networks allow the MN to access without additional key allocation. Also, at once, AAA server informs DHCP of that and then the DHCP allocates an IP address for the MN in advance. This paper verifies that the proposed scheme has lower handover latency than the existing one via numerical analysis.