Access point selection and reducing the handoff latency to support VoIP traffic

In IEEE 802.11 WLANs, a station can associate with more than one access point (AP). Previous algorithms which consider only the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) can cause stations to be associated to a single or only a few number of AP. However, it results in an overall network performance degradation. Besides, Hondoff in wireless networks is one of the critical issues for delay sensitive applications due to the high handoff latency. Therefore, a new algorithm is required both to select the most proper access point (AP) and to reduce the handoff latency to support multimedia traffic. In this paper, we propose a new AP selection algorithm which is based on reducing the handoff latency, improving the perceived voice quality (R value), capacity utilization, transmission rate, fairness, hidden nodes and the number of associated stations to an AP. Proposed algorithm works efficiently in the existence of both real-time and non-real-time traffic. Simulation results show improvements on the overall throughput and the perceived voice quality for users.