Performance analysis of MIH for enhanced network reliability through reduction of congestion borne failures

The increasing demand for application oriented network Quality of Service (QoS) along with anywhere, anytime paradigm is the major driving force behind recent development in mobile devices. Highly dynamic scenarios such as tracking and monitoring of fast moving vehicles, remote healthcare of patients with diverse location profiles require vertical handover to maintain network connectivity. This need to provide seamless connectivity across multiple wireless access solutions resulted in evolution of Media Independent Handovers (IEEE 802.21). With the exponential increase in number of mobile devices with ability to switch across the networks, congestion control has emerged as a critical challenge for all network planners and service providers. This paper introduces an intelligent, congestion aware and media independent handover mechanism for the 4G heterogeneous wireless network. The algorithm embeds device intelligence in terms of making handover decisions when network congestion is sensed by the communicating nodes. The decision parameter to select destination network for handover is minimum congestion keeping other QoS parameters within the application specific acceptable limits. The improvements achieved are in terms of reduced latency and increased bandwidth in all situations and in addition to better performance in terms of load, power and cost.