Evaluation of a technology-aware vertical handover algorithm based on the IEEE 802.21 standard

Nowadays, due to the ubiquity of wireless technologies, users demand continuous connectivity guaranteeing the Quality of Service (QoS) required for their communications. To fulfill those requirements, seamless Vertical Handover (VHO) is performed in order to maintain the connectivity among different wireless technologies while the user equipment moves across different coverage areas. In this work, we present a set of experiments to evaluate the vertical handover performance when relying on the IEEE 802.21 standard in scenarios where Wi-Fi, WiMAX and UMTS technologies are available. Experimental results show that a technology-aware vertical handover mechanism is able to achieve an adequate performance when traffic congestion is low.