Supporting vertical handover between universal mobile telecommunications system and wireless LAN for real-time services

Abstract

The provisioning of the seamless handovers for real-time services in-between UMTS/WLAN loose-interworking by the network-layer technologies has been studied. Issues are how to execute such a vertical handover in a fast and efficient manner as well as how to achieve it in a viable way. To resolve such issues, a novel scheme called 'designated crossover point' (DCP) within the existing IP end-to-end Quality of Servce (QoS) architecture has been proposed. The DCP is an agent at the edge router in the customer's premise to join the old RSVP signalling path and new RSVP signalling path. With the DCP in place, the vertical handover can be greatly accelerated. Besides, by enabling the DCP to handover to the edge router in the customer's network currently visited by the mobile, lower charging cost can be achieved. Finally, there is no modification required for the devices in the provider's network and thus the viability is much improved. It is then end up with a topology for resource management in IP backbone for UMTS/WLAN loose-interworking to support the idea of DCP. To determine when to perform the rerouting to remove the possible derouting caused by DCPs, use of an adaptive rule has been suggested. Simulation results show in general that the adaptive rule is effective.