• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.34 no.1B
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• pp.67-73
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• 2009

This paper proposes a new fast vertical handover mechanism to optimize and enhance the existing fast vertical handover HMIPv6(FV-HMIP) mechanism in heterogeneous wireless access networks. The proposed mechanism ad opts the IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover Function(MIHF), and thus is called the "MFV-HMIP". The Media Independent Handover Service (MIIS) in the IEEE 802.21 MIHF is extended by including new L3 inform ation to provide domain prefixes of heterogeneous neighbouring mobility anchor points(MAPs). This can eliminate the heterogeneous neighbouring MAP discovery phase in the existing FV-HMIP. Thus, the proposed MFV-HMIP can reduce the signalling traffic over wireless link and increase the possibility of predictive mode operation. Therefore, the proposed MFV-HMIP mechanism can be superior to the existing FV-HMIP mechanism for wireless resource efficiency, handover latency, and packet loss. Through analytic performance evaluations and computer si mulations, the proposed mechanism can be shown to optimize and enhance the existing mechanism.