Handoff Cost Minimization and Planning of Next Generation Heterogeneous Integrated Overlay Networks

Abstract

Next-generation wireless technologies have seen a paradigm shift as multiple standards and protocols emerge almost every day. Each standard has its limitations and merits, which can be either masked or complemented by other standards. For commercialization, various services should be provided in a cost effective manner, compelling a service provider to roll out integrated next generation wireless networks to exploit the virtues of each. This paper discusses the planning problem of overlay network integrating, particularly 3G, WiMAX and WLAN, establishing proper connectivity among the three networks. In the proposed planning approach, the authors focused on the initial phase and have minimized the cost for vertical handoff generated, and the cost for wire line connection amongst the various network gateways of the overlay hierarchy. To validate the planning problem, the simulated annealing (SA), a well-cited meta-heuristic H-II are presented and compared with a variant of distance based planning (DBP).