A new approach for fast handovers in mobile multimedia networks

This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of a novel scheme that exploits the inter access point protocol (IAPP), standardized by IEEE, in order to expedite the RSVP path reestablishment that takes place after a handover from one WLAN access point (AP) to another. The prime characteristic of this scheme is that a WLAN AP serves as a resource reservation protocol (RSVP) proxy that starts RSVP signaling on behalf of the mobile node much earlier compared with the standard RSVP operation in a WLAN. Therefore, a considerable handover latency reduction can be achieved, which can be as high as 30% under heavy traffic conditions. To evaluate the performance and the benefits of the proposed scheme, we display and discuss a series of simulation results.