Vertical Handover to Wireless Mesh Networks in the IMS

Grant Carelse Department of Computer Science University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535 Tel: +27 21 959 3010, Fax: +27 21 959 3006 email: 9917681@uwc.ac.za
Abstract-The Next Generation Network is envisioned as combining current wireless heterogeneous networks into an all-encompassing IP-based infrastructure conducive to the interworking of these differing access networks. The IMS is foreseen as being the signal plane to this all-IP Core infrastructure. This integration would largely enable mobility. An important aspect of this Heterogeneous Mobility is Vertical Handover. Vertical Handover is applicable to Wireless Mesh Networks and Cellular Networks since they are symbiotic technologies, yet it is currently ineffective. I propose Vertical Handover to Wireless Mesh Networks using the IMS, that is, applying SIP to the research challenge. Index TermsInternet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), Mobility Management, Vertical Handover, Wireless Mesh Network I. INTRODUCTION The Next Generation Network is envisioned as combining current wireless heterogeneous networks into an allencompassing IP-based infrastructure conducive to the interworking of these differing wireless access networks. At the forefront of this vision is the integration and wanton interoperation of the Internet and Cellular networks. Technological advancement has seen the miniaturization of computing equipment allowing for powerful portable devices [1], capable of accessing differing networks. For Next Generation Networks, portability defines mobility and therefore Mobility Management is an important concept and describes a devices ability to move between various access networks types. The integration of different networks generates several research challenges because of the following heterogeneities: 1) Access technologies; pertain to networks using different radio technologies. 2) Network architectures and protocols; wireless systems will have different network architectures and protocols for transport, routing, mobility management etc. 3) Service demands; mobile users demand different services ranging from low-data-rate non-real-time applications to high-speed real-time multimedia applications offered by various access networks [2]. Apart from the circuit-switched and packet-switched domains, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has defined a third signalling domain named the Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) in the release 5 specifications for 3G wireless network development [3]. It is therefore foreseeable that, in Next generation wireless systems, heterogeneous wireless access networks are interconnected by the IP core network for data transport and by the IMS for signalling exchanges [3]. The signalling protocol operating in IMS is a text-format protocol named Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) that was initially developed by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) [3]. An aspect inherent to this envisioned integration is Handover, borne as a consequence of a mobile users ability to move among these IP-based heterogeneous wireless networks while maintaining their active connections. Effective handover between Wireless Mesh and Cellular Networks, termed Vertical Handover since it involves differing types of access technologies, remains a necessity. This is relevant since these different access technologies are complementary with regard to cellular systems providing a very wide coverage area but a 384 kbps data transmission rate in comparison to the 5 Mbps bandwidth available to the IEEE 802.11 standard in consideration of multimedia applications, SIP and the IMS. Wireless Mesh Networks are a highly promising wireless network architecture. Compared to conventional wired networks, they have many advantages such as easy deployment, low cost, dynamic self-configuration etc [6]. The rest of the paper is organised as follows. The next section comprises Related Work. Section III proposes methods to achieve Vertical Handover to Wireless Mesh Networks in the IMS. Sections IV concludes the paper and identifies Future Work. II. RELATED WORK Mobile IP (MIP) was introduced to provide seamless, transparent data services to applications running on mobile devices [1]. It is an extension to standard IP that makes mobility transparent to higher-level protocols, allowing upper layer sessions to continue despite network layer movement [5]. Seamless is in reference to low handover latency and packet loss. MIP allows for Vertical Handover, which enables a user to change their point of attachment on the Internet, i.e. effectively change their IP address, and maintain the existing TCP connection for the ongoing session [4]. Changing their IP address while maintaining existing TCP

connections seems contradictory yet MIP achieves this by prescribing the introduction of 2 access routers into the Home and Visited networks, which are the Home (HA) and Foreign Agent (FA), respectively. These access routers then register 2 addresses for the roaming Mobile Node (MN) which are the Home address (HoA) in the MN Home network bound to the Care-of-Address (CoA) of the MN in the Visited Network. The HA then intercepts all packets destined for the MN, using proxy and gratuitous ARP and send them along a tunnel to the MN [1]. The HA constructs a new packet that contains the MNs CoA as its destination address, known as IP encapsulation [1]. MIP has several drawbacks [1]. While in the Visited Network, the MNs packets are routed via the HA through a tunnel, while packets being sent from the MN are sent directly to their destination, resulting in Triangulation. Triangulation causes packets to the MN to experience a larger latency than packets sent from the MN directly to the Correspondent Node (CN) [1]. MIP brings into focus two important attributes of Handover, which are: 1) Location Management; in reference to Security and Authentication information and QoS capabilities 2) Route Optimization; a process by which a route is created efficiently between the MN and the CN [4]. A large portion of the Mobility Management solutions in existence do not apply to Wireless Mesh Networks because of their following nature: i) There unplanned graph topology ii) In a Wireless Mesh Network the path between two nodes, which may be geographically close to each other, may involve several hops. This would be since there is no direct wireless connection existing between them iii) The dynamic nature of wireless connectivity can easily cause the time to transfer packets to vary due to route changes iv) They have a relatively high bit rate error (BER) v) The neighbourhood node discovery process [4]. III. METHODS I will create a Wireless Mesh Network with an IMS presence, similarly to that of a cellular network that has an IMS component to its network. Vertical Handover will then be IMS-based. Thus the resultant network will be composed of interconnected IMS autonomous domains [7]. Therefore the assumption is that the IMS terminal (Mobile handset with current point of attachment to a Cellular Network) will roam into a visited network and is involved in an on-going session and crosses the boundaries between a different visited IMS domain (Wireless Mesh Network), that is, Vertical Handover will then take place. I will then conduct experiments focussed on improving on the disadvantages of studied Related Work, concentrating on Route Optimization techniques to minimize latency and packet loss during Handover. Experiments will be conducted with a slant towards Wireless Mesh Networks implementing various solutions like Pre-handover Node discovery [7], Routing algorithm improvements, Prehandover Route Discovery for Round-Trip Time calculations etc. The Wireless Mesh Network will be deployed using Mesh Potatoes (MP). MPs are an IEEE 802.11bg mesh router with a single FXS port that automatically forms a peer-to-peer

network and relays telephone calls without landlines or cellular networks. The mesh routing protocol suited to mesh potatoes is known as Better Approach to Mobile Ad-hoc Networks or B.A.T.M.A.N. I will be incorporating mobile handsets with the Google Operating System known as Android. Also, I will be using the Open IMS Core from Fraunhofer Fokus.

IV. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK Cellular and Wireless Mesh Networks have been described as being complementary technology in considering certain multimedia applications. Yet Vertical Handover regarding these access networks is far from satisfactory as relayed by current research. The IMS is envisaged as the signalling plane for the all IP-based Next Generation Network. I will conduct experiments with the IMS as basis for Vertical Handover from a Cellular Network to a Wireless Mesh Network comparing latency and packet delay stemming from the Triangulation issue of MIP. Furthermore I intend optimizing further issues often overlooked in Mobility Management with regard to Wireless Mesh Networks. V. REFERENCES [1] R. Good and N. Ventura, A Multilayered Hybrid Architecture to Support Vertical Handover between IEEE 802.11 and UMTS, IWCMC06, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2006. [2] I. F. Akyildiz, J. Xie and S. Mohanty, A Survey of Mobility Management in Next-Generation All-IP-Based Wireless System, Georgia Institute of Technology, IEEE Wireless Communications, August 2004. [3] J. Zhang, F. R. Yu, X. Wang, H. C. B. Chan and V. C. M. Leung, SIP and Vertical Handoffs in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks, SIP Handbook: Services, Technologies, and Security, Taylor and Francis Group LLC, 2009. [4] V. Mirchandani and A. Prodan, Mobility Management in Wireless Mesh Networks, Sydney University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. [5] M. Bernaschi, F. Cacace, G. Iannello, S. Za and A. Pescape, Seamless Internetworking of WLANs and Cellular Networks: Architecture and Perfrmance Issues in a Mobile IPv6 Scenario, IEEE Wireless Communications, vol.12, no. 3, pp. 7380, June 2005. [6] Z. Zhang, R. W. Pazzi and A. Boukerche, Mobility Management Protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks, PM2HW2N09, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, October 2009. [7] A. Anzaloni, M. Listanti, I. Petrilli and D. Magri, Performance Study of IMS Authentication Procedures in Mobile 3G Networks, IWCMC07, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, August 2007.
Grant Carelse is an MSc student of Computer Science at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). His research interests include Hidden Markov Models, Artificial Intelligence and Wireless Mesh Networking.