Reputation for vertical handover decision making

To meet the continuously increasing demands and requirements of mobile users, next generation wireless systems are more and more relaying on the coexistence of heterogeneous wireless networks. The objective is to provide any time and anywhere connectivity to users. One of the main challenges in such a heterogeneous environment is mobility management, including network selection and Vertical Handover (VHO) procedures. In this paper, we propose a VHO management solution combining the use of reputation as a Quality of Experience (QoE) indicator for fast decision-making and the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) as a mobility protocol. This reputation-based Vertical Handover solution operates on the previous observed experiences of users within the different available networks to make fast decisions and uses the SCTP protocol that provides multihoming facilities. Performance results demonstrate that the proposed handover scheme provides seamless mobility, with low latency, good throughput and almost no packet loss.