Paper Info
Title
Performance Issues with Vertical Handovers - Experiences from GPRS Cellular and WLAN Hot-spots Integration
Abstract
Interworking heterogeneous wireless access technologies is an important step towards building the next generation, all-IP wireless access infrastructure. We present an experimental study of inter-network mobility between GPRS Cellular and 802.11b-based WLAN hot-spots, and deeply analyze its impact on active transport TCP flows. Our experiments were conducted over a loosely-coupled, Mobile IPv6-based, GPRS-WLAN experimental testbed. Detailed analysis from packet traces of inter-network (vertical) handovers reveals a number of performance bottlenecks. In particular, the disparity in the round trip time and bandwidth offered by GPRS and WLAN networks, and presence of deep buffers in GPRS, can aggravate performance during vertical handovers. This paper, therefore, summarizes practical experiences and challenges of providing transparent mobility in heterogeneous environments. Based on the observations, we propose a number of network-layer handover optimization techniques, e.g. fast router advertisements (RA), RA caching, binding update (BU) simulcasting and layer-3 based soft handovers that improve performance during vertical handovers. The paper concludes with our experiences of migrating TCP connections, thereby also improving application e.g. FTP, Web performance in this environment.
Year
DOI
Venue
2004
10.1109/PERCOM.2004.1276854
PerCom
Keywords
DocType
ISBN
binding update,wlan hot-spots integration,heterogeneous wireless access,gprs cellular,mobile ipv6-based,vertical handover,number ofnetwork-layer handover optimisation,performance issues,vertical handovers,gprs-wlan experimentaltestbed,fastrouter advertisements,all-ip wireless access infrastructure,ra caching,cellular networks,testing,ftp,round trip time,bandwidth,active transport,transport protocols,ground penetrating radar,layer 3,wireless networks,hot spot
Conference
0-7695-2090-1
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
84
6.71
18
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Rajiv Chakravorty149947.06
pablo vidales217018.71
Kavitha Subramanian31038.72
Ian Pratt45420506.92
Jon Crowcroft5120851252.50