Survey of Handoff Techniques in IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networks

الملخص

 IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks (WLAN) have been witnessing a
rapid growth and wide deployment in the last decade. Mobility support in
such networks is an essential issue. Hence, assurance of seamless
handoff is one of the major problems in mobile networks, especially, for
real-time streaming applications like Voice-over IP (VoIP). Handoff or
handover1
is a mechanism that aims to enable a mobile user (MS -Mobile
Station) to smoothly move between APs’ (Access Pints) covering areas.
Many handoff techniques have been proposed in the literature. A survey
with a brief description of most important handoff proposals is presented
in this paper. In addition, these techniques are theoretically evaluated and
compared.