MOBILITY BASED ANALYSIS OF HORIZONTAL HANDOVER IN WI-FI AND WIMAX

Abstract: Wireless networking has gained popularity being flexible in nature i.e. easy establishment and removal. First WLAN(Wireless Local Area Network) standard became available in market was WI-FI( IEEE 802.11 ) standards, with the increasing demand of more bandwidth and data rates new standard were developed of high frequency microwaves IEEE 802.16 standards. New networks are introducing heterogeneity among networks, for satisfying user demands of high bandwidth. Mobile users accessing internet are increasing with great pace often get less mobility feature by maintaining signal strength issues for sustainable data rates. Mobility of nodes (users) across different or homogeneous networks can overcome signal strength related issues. Mobility across networks performing handover can improve data rates and can provide all time on processing. Handover can be done with other networks like neighbor networks for connectivity. Also mobile node should handle different PHY/MAC related issues for reliable implementation of handover process. Mobility management across different networks needs to be addressed and examined for real time scenarios. In this research paper analysis of performance of horizontal handover among WI-FI and WIMAX networks considering certain parameters like packet drop and average throughput etc. in NS2 event driven simulation software. Handover among different networks evolves complexity of mobility management is discussed.

Keywords: Wireless Network, WI-FI, WIMAX, Horizontal handover, Vertical handover, NS2, Network Animator, Toolkit Command Language.