A Network Assisted Fast Handover Scheme for IEEE 802.16E Networks

The IEEE 802.16e provides QoS for real-time traffic; however, the packet transmission delay due to the handover process is still a big concern. Therefore, a fast handover approach to minimize the blocking time of real-time traffic is necessary for providing QoS. In this paper, we present a novel network architecture for IEEE 802.16e, which is still compatible to the IEEE 802.16e standard. Based on this architecture, a network assisted fast handover scheme (NFHO) is proposed to shorten the handover time. Performance evaluation has shown that our proposed NFHO scheme reduces the service disruption time by 98.2% and 96.8% compared to association levels 1 and 2 / Choi et al. of the IEEE 802.16e, respectively, for scanning just one base station (BS). Our improvements will be even better if scanning more BSs. In addition, the proposed NFHO scheme reduces the service disruption time by 78.4% with five neighbouring BSs scanning compared to Lee et al.