A dual threshold-based fast vertical handover scheme with authentication support

Vertical handover refers to the process that the interface connecting to wireless network changes across heterogeneous networks. The delay caused by vertical handover affects the quality of the ongoing applications, especially the real-time applications like VoIP. Authentication and security association is one of the major components of delay during vertical handover. If the Mobile Node(MN) uses stateless address configuration scheme during handover, it is another time consuming phase. In this paper, we propose a dual threshold based handover scheme, which uses the Media Independent Handover (MIH) services defined in the IEEE 802.21 to provide fast vertical handover with authentication support.