Seamless VoWLAN handoff management based on estimation of AP queue length and frame retries

Switching a communication path from one access point (AP) to another in inter-domain WLANs is a critical challenge for delay-sensitive applications such as voice over IP (VoIP) because communication quality during handoff (HO) is more likely to be deteriorated. To maintain VoIP quality during HO, we need to solve many problems. In particular, in bi-directional communication such as VoIP, an AP becomes a bottleneck with the increase of VoIP calls. As a result, packets queued in the AP buffer may experience a large queuing delay or packet losses due to buffer overflow, thereby causing the degradation of VoIP quality for the mobile nodes (MNs) side. To avoid this degradation, MNs need to appropriately and autonomously execute HO in response to the change in wireless network condition, i.e., the deterioration of wireless link quality and the congestion state at the AP. In this paper, we propose an HO decision strategy estimating AP queue length at an MN and exploiting frame retries to maintain VoIP quality during HO.