An improved scheme for minimizing handoff failure due to poor signal quality

There is a growing demand on the mobile wireless operators to provide continuous, satisfactory, and reliable quality of service to their teeming subscribers. Handoff failure which is one of the major causes of call drops is a major challenge prevalent in the mobile systems worldwide. Mobile users are more sensitive to handoff failure than new call failure. In this paper, an improved scheme for minimizing handoff failure due to poor signal quality was presented. The improved scheme was based on the following parameters: call signal quality, channel availability and the direction of movement of the mobile terminal to the base station. Through the use of MatLab software, the performance of the improved handoff scheme was compared with an existing handoff scheme. The comparison was based on the handoff failure probability and new call blocking probability for each of the schemes. The results obtained from simulation showed that the new scheme has a reduced handoff failure probability than the existing scheme.