Impact of user preferences on the quality of vertical handovers

In this paper we investigate the impact of user preferences on the choice of the best suited network and the handover success rate. The user preferences were translated into fixed access network rankings. With these preference functions, their impact is relatively small. In contrast, the speed of the mobile device plays a critical role for the choice of the target NAP and the handover success rate accordingly. Next steps towards a dynamic handover decision function will be the use of utility functions based on measured network data instead of fixed rankings. Then the utility function should be further expanded to allow more than one preference per user. The user may also be allowed to weight its preferences. In a last step the weight of the preferences may dynamically change with the network condition.