Abstract:
The growing demands for ubiquitous high-speed data
services require hybrid interworking in Next-
Generation (NG) wireless networks. Handover
management is important in providing seamless
roaming when User Equipments (UE) are moving
across boundaries of radio coverage areas provided by
different networking technologies. Handover
mechanisms have been well studied in homogeneous
circuit-switched networks, such as GSM and IS-41, and
have also began to be implemented in NG wireless data
networks, e.g. UMTS and 802.11 Wireless LAN
(WLAN). Hybrid interworking of NG wireless data
networks has to address more issues, such as user
context, signaling process, traffic routing and Quality of
Service (QoS) so as to perform the challenging tasks in
dealing with the heterogeneities of networking
technologies. In this paper we investigate handover
mechanisms in current homogeneous data networks,
and present four roaming scenarios for hybrid
interworking, in which handover is assigned different
levels of weight. The prioritized requirements for hybrid
interworking scenarios will be analyzed, and compared.
