Handovers for Ubiquitous and Optimal Broadband Connectivity among Cooperative Networking Environments.

The handover function is a key enabler for seamless mobility and service continuity among a variety of mobile/wireless access technologies supporting IF connectivity. The paper focuses on the key research challenges regarding inter-system handover operations among various radio cooperative networking environments (3G, WLAN, WiMAX and DVB) that are going to formulate future/near future business cases for both broadcasters and telecom operators in the context of a Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) communications environment. In this context, relevant efforts from the IETF, IEEE 802.21, IEEE 1900.4, 3GPP and DVB are reviewed and incorporation of the IEEE 802.21 functionality inside the mobility management protocol stack is discussed.