Exploring Efficient Imperative Handover Mechanisms for Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The next generation Internet will provide ubiquitous computing by the seamless operation of heterogeneous wireless networks. It will also provide support for quality-of-service, QoS, fostering new classes of applications and will have a built-in multi-level security environment. A key requirement of this new infrastructure will be support for efficient vertical handover. Y-Comm is a new architecture that will meet the challenge of this new environment. This paper explores the design of efficient imperative handover mechanisms using the Y-Comm Framework. It first looks at different types of handovers, then examines the Y-Comm Framework and shows how Y-Comm maps unto current mobile infrastructure. It then explores support for different handover mechanisms using Y-Comm. Finally, it highlights the development of a new testbed to further investigate the proposed mechanisms.