Handoff in mobile wireless ATM networks: an integrated approach

Route augmentation based connection rerouting techniques for handoff provide a level of speed and simplicity that can potentially reduce handoff latency and signaling costs, but can become terribly inefficient if the connection route begins to loop itself. We address this issue in this paper by introducing a framework for efficient handoff in which the route information of the call is integrated in the decision process of connection rerouting. A key feature in our approach is that during the handoff the switch covering the mobile host determines the type of handoff that needs to be initiated based on the existing route information of the call that is being handed off and the location of the mobile host. In current handoff techniques in the literature, the switches are not capable of making such choices. This algorithm is aimed at improving the efficiency of the route in the route augmentation technique by avoiding loops.