Determining the best network to handover among various IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16 networks by a mobile device

IEEE 802.16 (popularly known as WiMax) devices and networks are due to enter the market in a few years time from now. With IEEE 802.11 (popularly known as Wi-Fi) already widely prevalent, it is highly unlikely that 802.16 totally replaces it. It is most likely that both these technologies co-exist complementing each other. Thus we need a standard that enables mobile devices that are compatible to both these networks to seamlessly handover from one to another. This paper discusses various parameters that such a mobile device needs to consider, methods to obtain them and an algorithm to determine the best network to handover in an environment that contains many 802.16 and 802.11 networks