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Mobile IPv6 Handoff
Cellular GPRS and 802.11
WLAN
Integration |
Efficient integration
of
wireless access networks and services is a key step in building an all-IP
ubiquitous wireless access infrastructure. As part of this vision, we
deployed an infrastructure that integrated the departmental 802.11
WLANs with a commercial cellular GPRS infrastructure from the world's largest cellular operator, Vodafone. A unique aspect
of this infrastructure is that it is based on IPv6, and realistically
emulates a scenario for the future 4G wireless overlay environment. We
conducted several experiments to evaluate how seamlessly we can perform
handovers between two disparate networks cellular GPRS and 802.11 WLAN.
We
measured handover performance with Mobile IPv6 and its impact on TCP
and HTTP, and suggested several optimizations, including a soft
handover technique but implemented at the network layer to help
alleviate packet losses and handover delays. Our results showed
significant improvements from these optimizations, and demonstrated
that the vision of a converged network infrastructure is practically
possible.
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