Improving QoS and QoE Through Seamless Handoff in Software-Defined IEEE 802.11 Mesh Networks

To deliver an enhanced mobility experience, wireless networks must provide seamless handoff to mobile clients. Moreover, the handoff process should preserve quality-of-service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) at acceptable levels. This letter presents a strategy to provide seamless mobility in wireless mesh networks, considering software-defined network-controlled handoff and passive measurements. To validate the proposal, we deployed a 802.11/OpenFlow test bed and performed extensive experiments. Experimental results demonstrated improvements of QoE up to 70% while keeping key QoS metrics below real-time applications constraints.

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