Vertical-to-Horizontal Handovers: Architecture and Mobility Management

This paper describes a new vision for mobility management in next generation all IP networks. We evaluate the vertical-to-horizontal handover in the proposed integration architecture for the third generation wireless communication (3G) from one side and WLAN 802.11 from the other side. In this architecture, the inter-domain management IDM module introduced is modeled and analytically studied in order to evaluate the handover calls dropping probability and the call blocking probability in function of the access network bandwidth, number of users and the admission control strategy. In this scenario, if it is not possible to guide the handover to a different access network capable of providing the same QoS and context parameters, or in other words, if the vertical handover could not be performed, it will be guided horizontally. In this case, the user is guided to the same access technology, resulting in a vertical-to- horizontal handover. This handover management will decrease the handover dropping probability as well as the QoS degradation since the handover is "guided" to the next access network.