Performance evaluation of a transport layer solution for seamless vertical mobility

Major research challenges in the next generation of wireless networks include the provisioning of worldwide seamless mobility across heterogeneous network interfaces and the improvement of end to end quality of service. The integration and interoperability of the multitude of available networks will lead towards the emergence of the fourth generation of wireless networks. In this paper we introduce a transport layer mobility solution that supports roaming of a mobile host without any necessary modifications to the underlying network and data link layers. A modified version of the new IETF transport protocol, SCTP, is shown to improve the handoff latency and delay. Using simulation results, we show that a noticeable improvement in performance is possible by monitoring the accessible networks, and making the appropriate handoff decisions. Furthermore, we prove that a higher level of user preferences and context awareness can be achieved with the employment of our scheme.