A FMIPv6 Based Handover Scheme for Real-Time Applications in Mobile WiMAX

The IEEE 802.16 standard was designed to provide rapid deployment, high bandwidth, and low-cost fixed broadband wireless access (BWA). As an enhancement, IEEE 802.16e standard was developed for further supporting mobility. As media streaming services are extending to mobile stations, it is crucial to minimize the handover delay and service disruption time so as to maintain the sustained connection of IP sessions. In this work, we propose a cross-layer IPv6 fast handover scheme which features integrated layer 2/layer 3 messages and fast network re-entry methods. Compared with the fast mobile IPv6 over 802.16e network scheme in predictive mode, our proposed scheme can reduce the service disruption time by more than 90% and 85% for downlink and uplink, respectively so that the quality of service (QoS) for real-time applications can be improved significantly.