Enabling IEEE 802.21 in a B3G cellular experimental network
Abstract
Recent trends in mobile networking show the large scale emergence of multimode mobile terminals, with the capability to simultaneously or sequentially attach to conceptually different access networks. To cope with this, they require an abstracted framework for mobility management and control. A solution to this issue, called Media Independent Handover Services, is standardized by the 802.21 group of the IEEE. This work has been studied and applied to the case of a B3G operator networks in an EU-funded research project in order to improve seamless handover between heterogeneous technologies. This paper focuses on the integration of the Beyond-3G cellular access technology in this framework, and how it can cooperate with the 802.21 to execute handovers to and from cellular networks. This study has been implemented in an experimental software radio platform which provides a direct inter-connection between the access node and the IPv6 Core Network, very close to the LTE specifications of the 3GPP. We describe here the mapping between a selection of Media Independent Handover primitives and the cellular air interface procedures available in the platform for Mobility, Quality of Service management and Multicast support (MBMS). Finally, we provide some measurements and results obtained after the integration and demonstration of the heterogeneous network framework.