Terminal-oriented solutions for seamless service delivery via heterogeneous radio access networks

In this paper, options for providing seamless service delivery to mobile terminals via heterogeneous radio access networks are considered. Despite its current popularity, the Mobile IP solution for mobility management of mobile hosts is discounted due to problems associated with introducing the required network infrastructure and poor handover performance. Rather, the solution described here comprises of a number of key technologies working together. More specifically, the paper argues that the most appropriate solution comprises of the following: adaptive applications, an abstraction layer between application and transport layer, an intelligent transport layer with multi-homing and multi-path support and a means to obtain current state information about each of the available access networks. While work has been ongoing on each of these individual components little has been done to address how they can all be integrated and consider how they may perform in the context of different radio access technologies, potentially operated by different entities. This paper attempts to address some of these issues.