Load Balancing in WLANs through IEEE 802.11k Mechanisms

Current growth in the number of IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN networks, whether they be to provide cordless access to private home or enterprise networks, or to provide public access in Hot-Spots, brings the need to apply smart load balancing techniques with the aim to improve network performance. These techniques require the provision of radio measurements from physical and medium access layers. IEEE 802.11k Task Group is currently working on the standardization of new mechanisms to supply the required measurements which will assist in the radio resource management. In this paper we provide a comprehensive survey of different load balancing mechanisms and then, we discuss how the future 802.11k functionalities could be applied to facilitate the implementation of these load balancing techniques in 802.11 WLAN