Network Selection Strategy in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Next generation communications will offer a wide range of services available to users anywhere at any time. How wireless users access those services depends on the current user context: location, characteristics of the available networks, user preferences, application requirements and terminal capabilities. The vision is that users will not be tied down to a long-term contract with one single operator and will instead be able to dynamically choose access provision on a per call basis. The evolving competitive marketplace will provide a choice of access networks in any given location, each offering different network technologies with varying characteristics to transport the user’s communications application. This paper highlights the need for an access network selection decision strategy to aid users operating in this heterogeneous multi-network wireless environment. We propose a consumer surplus based algorithm that selects the best available network for transferring non real-time data, with user specified time constraints. When compared to an always cheapest strategy simulation results show significant performance gains in transfer completion time for the consumer surplus based strategy.