Title: A dynamic network discovery and selection method for heterogeneous wireless networks

Authors: Farhan Siddiqui, Sherali Zeadally, Hesham El-Sayed, Naveen Chilamkurti

Addresses: Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Bradley University, USA. ' Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of the District of Columbia, USA. ' College of Information Technology, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, UAE. ' Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, La Trobe University, Australia

Abstract: Next generation communication systems aim at providing ubiquitous network access by integrating a wide-range of wireless technologies. The availability of various access networks requires a mobile device to be capable of selecting the best access network with minimum user intervention. We present a design architecture that efficiently discovers available wireless networks, and implements automatic network selection based on several factors such as the conditions of accessible networks, requirements of active applications, and preferences of the mobile user. We also present a case study to demonstrate the operation of the proposed prototype architecture in an actual heterogeneous network testbed.

Keywords: heterogeneous wireless networks; handoff; mobile communications; QoS; quality of service; WLAN; wireless LANs; local area networks; GPRS; general packet radio service; battery time; power consumption; network selection; network discovery.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIPT.2009.027335

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology, 2009 Vol.4 No.2, pp.99 - 114

Published online: 20 Jul 2009 *

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