Performance Analysis of MIH based Multihoming Approach of Vertical Handover in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Mobility management in heterogeneous wireless networks is always considered as a challenging task in terms of interoperability, service availability and session continuity. This research proposes a new IEEE 802.21 based multihoming architecture for vertical handover between heterogeneous wireless networks. The framework is used to optimize handover at link layer (L2) and network layer (L3). Media Independent Handover (MIH) layer is added in the protocol stack which uses its defined services for network detection and selection. It collects information from link and network layer and forwards them to upper layers which are used to take optimized L2 and L3 handover decision. In addition, Mobile IP is incorporated with multihoming for simultaneous bindings for Mobile Node (MN). This hybrid approach reduces network selection time and improves data throughput and end-to-end delay. Using MIH, available networks are detected ahead of time and binding with the target network is achieved. The proposed approach is implemented in Network Simulator (ns-2). The comparative analysis of simulation results show that the proposed approach has improved data throughput and end-to-end delay by 49.8 % and 89.9 % respectively