A high performance link layer mobility management strategy for professional private broadband networks

Abstract In this paper, we present an innovative approach to solving the mobility management problem in the context of professional private broadband networks in the vehicular scenario. These heterogeneous communication networks are commonly deployed and managed by mission-critical organisations with the aim of supporting their specific and highly demanding services. Taking advantage of the specific characteristics of these networks, we propose to solve the mobility problem at Layer 2. This way, the mobility management overhead is reduced compared to solutions that operate at Layer 3 or above and therefore, shorter handover delays and better end-to-end application performances are achieved. The core element of our proposal is an intelligent mobile switch that makes use of the services provided by the IEEE 802.21 protocol to enhance vertical or heterogeneous handover performance. To validate our approach, we have developed a prototype implementation of the designed mobile switch with IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16 support. Using this mobile switch implementation, we have carried out a set of experiments over a real testbed and measured some key indicators to assess the mobility management process. The obtained results show that our handover strategy comfortably meets the requirements of the ITU-T Y.1541 recommendation for highly demanding applications and ITU-R report M.2134 for high-speed handover. To the best of our knowledge, our contribution is the first proposal that solves the mobility management problem at Layer 2 while addressing the multi-access technology context in the vehicular professional private network scenario.