Ricardo Silva, Paulo Carvalho*, Pedro Sousa*, Pedro Neves
PT INovação, S.A.
Portugal Telecom Group
P-3810-106 Aveiro, Portugal
*Centro ALGORITMI
Universidade do Minho
Departamento de Informática
P-4710-057 Braga, Portugal
Tel.: +351 253 604432
Fax.: +351 253 604471
E-mail: pmc at di.uminho.pt
The fast growing of mobile Internet users with the ability of using
a wide diversity of access technologies such as Wi-Fi, WiMAX and
UMTS/LTE, and the increasing proliferation of mobile devices with
heterogeneous network interfaces, require versatile mobility mechanisms
providing seamless roaming across those access technologies. Mobility
agents such as Mobile IP and Fast MIPv6 are common, however, these
solutions still have limitations when dealing with multiple link-layer
technologies. In this context, the emerging standard IEEE 802.21
provides a framework which enables mobile agents and network operators
to improve the handover process in heterogeneous networks. In this
context, this paper presents and discusses the design and
implementation of a mobility-aware solution for an Android device,
using the IEEE 802.21 framework. A modified Android user terminal is
proposed to improve the handover process, assuming a make-before-break
approach. Resorting to an experimental testbed, the obtained results
show that the proposed solution is an effective contribution to
successfully accomplish seamless mobility of Android-based devices
operating in 3G and Wi-Fi networks.
Keywords: Heterogeneous mobility; Android; IEEE 802.21